inty women, his cousin Beatrice and little Miss
Gerard, frail, delicate; all these fine ladies with their small fingers
and slender necks, suddenly were transfigured in his tortured mind into
harpies tearing human flesh. His head swam with the horror of it, the
terror of it. Yes, the People WOULD turn some day, and turning, rend
those who now preyed upon them. It would be "dog eat dog" again, with
positions reversed, and he saw for one instant of time that splendid
house sacked to its foundations, the tables overturned, the pictures
torn, the hangings blazing, and Liberty, the red-handed Man in the
Street, grimed with powder smoke, foul with the gutter, rush yelling,
torch in hand, through every door.

*****

At ten o'clock Mrs. Hooven fell.

Luckily she was leading Hilda by the hand at the time and the little
girl was not hurt. In vain had Mrs. Hooven, hour after hour, walked the
streets. After a while she no longer made any attempt to beg; nobody was
stirring, nor did she even try to hunt for food with the stray dogs and
cats. She had made up her mind to return to the park in order to
sit upon the benches there, but she had mistaken the direction, and
following up Sacramento Street, had come out at length, not upon the
park, but upon a great vacant lot at the very top of the Clay Street
hill. The ground was unfenced and rose above her to form the cap of the
hill, all overgrown with bushes and a few stunted live oaks. It was in
trying to cross this piece of ground that she fell. She got upon her
feet again.

"Ach, Mammy, did you hurt yourself?" asked Hilda.

"No, no."

"Is that house where we get those bread'n milk?"

Hilda pointed to a single rambling building just visible in the night,
that stood isolated upon the summit of the hill in a grove of trees.

"No, no, dere aindt no braid end miluk, leedle tochter."

Hilda once more began to sob.

"Ach, Mammy, please, PLEASE, I want it. I'm hungry."

The jangled nerves snapped at last under the tension, and Mrs. Hooven,
suddenly shaking Hilda roughly, cried out: "Stop, stop. Doand say ut
egen, you. My Gott, you kill me yet."

But quick upon this came the reaction. The mother caught her little
girl to her, sinking down upon her knees, putting her arms around her,
holding her close.

"No, no, gry all so mudge es you want. Say dot you are hongry. Say ut
egen, say ut all de dime, ofer end ofer egen. Say ut, poor, starfing,
leedle babby. Oh, mein poor, leedle t