air touched the nerve in
her nostril, it seemed instantaneously charged with the smell of old
dinners. "No," cried Emilia, "I dislike anything but plain food." She
quickly gave way, and admitted a craving for dainty morsels. "One
lump of sugar!" she subsequently sighed. But neither sugar nor meat
approached her.

Her seat was under trees, between a man and a woman who slanted from
her with hidden chins. The chilly dry leaves began to waken, and the sky
showed its grey. Hunger had become as a leaden ball in Emilia's chest.
She could have eaten eagerly still, but she had no ravenous images of
food. Nevertheless, she determined to beg for bread at a baker's shop.
Coming into the empty streets again, the dread of exposing her solitary
wretchedness and the stains of night upon her, kept her back. When she
did venture near the baker's shop, her sensation of weariness, want of
washing, and general misery, made her feel a contrast to all other women
she saw, that robbed her of the necessary effrontery. She preferred to
hide her head.

The morning hours went in this conflict. She was between-whiles hungry
and desperate, or stricken with shame. Fatigue, bringing the imperious
necessity for rest, intervened as a relief. Emilia moaned at the weary
length of the light, but when dusk fell and she beheld flame in the
lamps, it seemed to be too sudden and she was alarmed. Passive despair
had set in. She felt sick, though not weak, and the thought of asking
help had gone.

A street urchin, of the true London species, in whom excess of woollen
comforter made up for any marked scantiness in the rest of his attire,
came trotting the pavement, pouring one of the favourite tunes of his
native metropolis through the tube of a penny-whistle, from which it did
not issue so disguised but that attentive ears might pronounce it the
royal march of the Cannibal Islands. A placarded post beside a lamp met
this musician's eye; and, still piping, he bent his knees and read the
notification. Emilia thought of the Hillford and Ipley clubmen, the big
drum, the speeches, the cheers, and all the wild strength that lay in
her that happy morning. She watched the boy piping as if he were reading
from a score, and her sense of humour was touched. "You foolish boy!"
she said to herself softly. But when, having evidently come to the last
printed line, the boy rose and pocketed his penny-whistle, Emilia was
nearly laughing. "That's because he cannot turn over t