f the bundles of household goods, a wretched woman
and her newborn child were lying, covered under a scanty tarpauling from
the driving sleet. The mud splashed beneath their feet; Susannah had
little breath or strength for speech. Elvira, more slightly made, in
every way more fragile, had seemed to develop, with every new phase of
suffering, more strength of muscle and hatred and love.

They passed now two of the leaders. It was the custom for a certain
number of these men to go forward and station themselves in pairs at
intervals upon the road, cheering each group as it passed them, noting
with careful eyes if any ill could be remedied by change of posture or
exchange of burdens. One of them now, seeing the work to which Susannah
had set herself, interfered. He was about sixty years of age, coarse in
appearance, an elder whose wife and family Susannah knew by reputation.
He and his fellows called a halt, looking for some man who might push
the cart, but there was none within sight who was not already
overburdened, nor was there a waggon that was not already overfilled
with the sick and exhausted. The elder, whose name happened to be
Darling, found in this particular instance reason to swerve from his
position of guard. He left the post in charge of his fellow and pushed
the cart. It was a habit with many of these leaders to seek to lighten
the way by jocularities, and Susannah had before observed that, whether
the jests arose with ease or effort from the heavy hearts of those who
made them, a large proportion of the people were evidently cheered
thereby. She could put aside her own tastes for the public good; she
could even excuse when this rough comfort was offered to herself.
Darling, labouring behind the cart, made light of the service he
rendered.

He said first that the newborn babe must be called after him, and when
he learned its sex he gave permission to the ladies to decide between
them which should share this honour.

"Shall it be 'darling Susannah'?" he asked, making gentle his tone as he
addressed the stately widow, "or shall it be 'Elvira darling'?" This
time he turned his head with a broader smile toward Elvira's sharp
little features.

Susannah felt that her hypersensitive nerves could almost have called
his smile a leer; but she looked at the man's broad face, whose lines
told of no resources of thought, no great natural capacity for heroism,
and yet were furrowed by the sharpness of this persecutio