ought her resolution to the point of speech, she quailed, shrinking,
her ears tingling, her whole being protesting against the degradation.
Every one must be looking at her. Her shame was no doubt the object of
an hundred eyes.

"Mammy, I'm hungry," protested Hilda again.

She made up her mind. What, though, was she to say? In what words did
beggars ask for assistance?

She tried to remember how tramps who had appeared at her back door
on Los Muertos had addressed her; how and with what formula certain
mendicants of Bonneville had appealed to her. Then, having settled upon
a phrase, she approached a whiskered gentleman with a large stomach,
walking briskly in the direction of the town.

"Say, den, blease hellup a boor womun."

The gentleman passed on.

"Perhaps he doand hear me," she murmured.

Two well-dressed women advanced, chattering gayly.

"Say, say, den, blease hellup a boor womun."

One of the women paused, murmuring to her companion, and from her purse
extracted a yellow ticket which she gave to Mrs. Hooven with voluble
explanations. But Mrs. Hooven was confused, she did not understand. What
could the ticket mean? The women went on their way.

The next person to whom she applied was a young girl of about eighteen,
very prettily dressed.

"Say, say, den, blease hellup a boor womun."

In evident embarrassment, the young girl paused and searched in her
little pocketbook. "I think I have--I think--I have just ten cents here
somewhere," she murmured again and again.

In the end, she found a dime, and dropped it into Mrs. Hooven's palm.

That was the beginning. The first step once taken, the others became
easy. All day long, Mrs. Hooven and Hilda followed the streets, begging,
begging. Here it was a nickel, there a dime, here a nickel again. But
she was not expert in the art, nor did she know where to buy food the
cheapest; and the entire day's work resulted only in barely enough for
two meals of bread, milk, and a wretchedly cooked stew. Tuesday night
found the pair once more shelterless.

Once more, Mrs. Hooven and her baby passed the night on the park
benches. But early on Wednesday morning, Mrs. Hooven found herself
assailed by sharp pains and cramps in her stomach. What was the
cause she could not say; but as the day went on, the pains increased,
alternating with hot flushes over all her body, and a certain weakness
and faintness. As the day went on, the pain and the weakness increased.
When s