shiver seemed to rise in
the very marrow of her bones and run down every artery and vein,
freezing the blood; her skin puckered up, and drawing up her legs she
lay huddled together in a heap, the shawl wrapped tightly round her,
and her teeth chattering. Shivering, she whispered:

'Oh, I'm so cold, so cold. Mother, give me some clothes; I shall die
of the cold. Oh, I'm freezing!'

But after awhile the cold seemed to give way, and a sudden heat seized
her, flushing her face, making her break out into perspiration, so
that she threw everything off and loosened the things about her neck.

'Give us a drink,' she said. 'Oh, I'd give anythin' for a little drop
of water!'

There was no one to hear; Mrs. Kemp continued to sleep heavily,
occasionally breaking out into a little snore.

Liza remained there, now shivering with cold, now panting for breath,
listening to the regular, heavy breathing by her side, and in her pain
she sobbed. She pulled at her pillow and said:

'Why can't I go to sleep? Why can't I sleep like 'er?'

And the darkness was awful; it was a heavy, ghastly blackness, that
seemed palpable, so that it frightened her and she looked for relief
at the faint light glimmering through the window from a distant
street-lamp. She thought the night would never end--the minutes seemed
like hours, and she wondered how she should live through till morning.
And strange pains that she did not know went through her.

Still the night went on, the darkness continued, cold and horrible,
and her mother breathed loudly and steadily by her side.

At last with the morning sleep came; but the sleep was almost worse
than the wakefulness, for it was accompanied by ugly, disturbing
dreams. Liza thought she was going through the fight with her enemy,
and Mrs. Blakeston grew enormous in size, and multiplied, so that every
way she turned the figure confronted her. And she began running away,
and she ran and ran till she found herself reckoning up an account she
had puzzled over in the morning, and she did it backwards and
forwards, upwards and downwards, starting here, starting there, and
the figures got mixed up with other things, and she had to begin over
again, and everything jumbled up, and her head whirled, till finally,
with a start, she woke.

The darkness had given way to a cold, grey dawn, her uncovered legs
were chilled to the bone, and by her side she heard again the regular,
nasal breathing of the drunkard.

For a