come soon and bring some tea. I think a good cup of tea would make me
better."

"And, mother," said Cora, "we will take the money we were going to spend
for shoes and get a bit of flannel for you and the baby. You must have
it or you will freeze. Surely father will come soon. He said he would."

"Nearly everyone has gone home now. Hardly a person passes," Cora
observed, with her nose pressed against the frosty pane.

"That is because it is so cold. It is not late yet. We will wait a
little longer, and then Maggie----"

"O, mother! Do not ask me to go. It is so cold, and suppose--suppose I
had to go into a saloon again. It nearly kills me to go about such
places."

"You might meet him, Maggie, and keep him from going in."

"If my pa don't come tonight, he's a big liar, that's all!" broke in
Johnnie, hotly.

His mother did not answer him. She was watching the face bent low over
the tiny baby. She noted the careworn look and the nervous pressure of
the hand held over the tiny one to keep it warm.

Presently the girl lifted her eyes to her mother. Those tender pleading
eyes of the mother would have melted a harder heart than hers. She went
to the bed and put the baby in, close to its mother's side. Then she
threw her arms around the haggard woman's neck and kissed her
passionately.

"Dear mother," she said, "I would do anything for you. I will go for
father, and before it gets any later."

"Pray, child! Pray every breath you draw! Pray every step you take that
you may find him before it is too late. If you do not--I cannot imagine
what is to become of us. Pray! God is not cruel. Surely he will hear us
in our misery."

Would you see the drunkard's daughter dressed for a walk this bitter
night? A frail, slender girl, who should have been warmly clad, she is
dressed in thinnest, shabby cotton, through which the elements will play
as through rags of gauze, while the flesh of her feet, unprotected by
her almost soleless shoes, will press against the sleet. The two faded
pink roses that flap forlornly on the side of her coarse straw hat bear
a silent suggestion of pathos--a faint remembrance, perhaps, of the days
of departed happiness.

While she is adjusting the remnant of a shawl so as to cover as much of
her shoulders as possible, the children are giving her numerous messages
to be given their father when she finds him. At last she is ready. After
hesitating a moment she kisses them all and with a shudder steps