rch, Uncle Abel?'

'Sometimes in the afternoon, or at night. Oh, there are plenty of
churches; they grow as thick as mushrooms, and do about as much good.
Won't you eat?'

The fare was not inviting; nevertheless, Gladys did her best to swallow
a few morsels, because she really felt faint and weak. It did not occur
to the miser that he might kindle a cheerful spark of fire to give her a
welcome, and to make her a cup of tea. He was not less cold and hungry
himself, it may be believed, but he had long inured himself to such
privation, and bore it with an outward semblance of content.

When they had eaten, he busied himself getting an old rug and a pillow
from the chest standing across one of the windows, and carried them into
the other room, then he bade Gladys get quickly to bed, and not burn the
candle too long. He went in the dark himself, and when Gladys heard his
footsteps growing fainter in the long passage a great terror took
possession of her, the place was so strange, so cold, so unknown. For
some time she was even afraid to move, but at last she rose and crossed
the floor to the windows, to see whether from them anything friendly or
familiar could be seen. But they looked into the street, and had thick
iron bars across them, exactly like the windows of a gaol. It was the
last straw added to the burden of the unhappy child. Her imagination did
not lack in vividness, and a thousand unknown terrors rose up before her
terrified eyes. If only from the window she might have looked up to the
eyes of the pitying stars, she had been less desolate, less forlorn. A
sharp sense of physical cold was the first thing to arouse her, and she
took the candle and approached the bed. Now, though they had ever been
poor, the artist and his child had kept their surroundings clean and
wholesome. In her personal tastes Gladys was as fastidious as the
highest lady in the land. She turned down the covering, and when she saw
the hue of the linen her lip curled, and she hastily covered it up from
sight. In the end, she laid herself down without undressing above the
bed, spreading a clean handkerchief for her head to rest upon; and so,
worn-out, she slept at last an untroubled and dreamless sleep, in which
she forgot for many hours her forlorn and friendless state.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER IV.

A RAY OF LIGHT.

Sunday was a dreary day. It rained again, and the fog was so thick that
it seemed dim twilight all day long in Glad