begged me, for the love of heaven, to go to her mother, who
must be half-crazed with grief because of her disappearance, and to take
her something to eat.

"So Mrs. Floyd fixed a basket of lunch and we went. A lump rose in my
throat when I went into that place. It was cold, very cold. Maggie's
mother was lying on a bed in one corner of the room, with one thin quilt
over her, and a tiny moaning baby at her breast. Sitting on a box near
the bed were two children, a small boy and a girl. They were huddled
under a fragment of blanket. The boy was crying for something to eat and
his sister was trying bravely to comfort him.

"There was not a spark of fire nor a crumb of food about the place. When
Mrs. Floyd opened the basket and the children saw what it contained,
they bounded toward it like wolves, and the woman reached out her thin
hand and said, eagerly: 'Give me some quick! I'm nearly starved, and the
baby is so weak--my breasts are dry.'

"I took off my glove and felt her hand, and I really thought she must be
frozen; but she said she had been that way so much she was growing used
to it.

"We stopped on our way home and ordered some coal, and later made a raid
on our closets and pantry and made up a load of stuff to take back. I
sent some good blankets and quite an assortment of clothing, so that by
night they were fairly comfortable.

"I went again the next day to see how they were getting along and to
give them news of Maggie, and while I was there the father came home for
the first time. He was over his spell of intoxication, but was weak, and
tottered like an old man. His eyes were bloodshot, and on the whole he
was not a very prepossessing looking gentleman, but I could not help
feeling sorry for him. It seemed so sad to see a being, created in the
image of God, such a miserable wreck.

"Casting his eye hurriedly around the room, he went to the bedside and
asked for Maggie. His wife told him how she had gone for him, how she
fell, and the rest of the story, and then he told his tale, and--can you
believe it, father--that man kicked the girl out of the door--kicked his
own daughter down the steps into the storm that night, and gave her the
injury from which she lies here under our roof now.

"My blood boiled, fairly boiled. I could feel it bubbling. His wife
turned her face to the tiny baby, and I could see her frame shake under
the cover. The man knelt beside the bed and wept, too, and again I was
sorry, wi