you can."

The child sat down on the doorstep with the bag of scones clasped in
both hands, but he continued to gaze after his benefactor till he
had passed out of sight, and there was a strange look of surprise and
gratification in his eyes. That was a man who knew! Many people had,
after hard begging, thrown him pence, many had warned him off harshly,
but this man had looked straight into his eyes, and had at once stopped
and questioned him, had singled out the one true statement from a mass
of lies, and had given him--not a stale loaf with the top cut off, a
suspicious sort of charity which always angered the waif--but his own
food, bought for his own consumption. Most wonderful of all, too,
this man knew what it was to be hungry, and had even the insight and
shrewdness to be aware that the waif's best chance of eating the scones
at all was to eat them then and there. For the first time a feeling of
reverence and admiration was kindled in the child's heart; he would have
done a great deal for his unknown friend.

Raeburn and Erica had meanwhile walked on in the direction of Guilford
Square.

"I had bought them for you," said Erica, reproachfully.

"And I ruthlessly gave them away," said Raeburn, smiling. "That was hard
lines; I though they were only household stock. But after all it comes
to the same thing in the end, or better. You have given them to me by
giving them to the child. Never mind, 'Little son Eric!'"

This was his pet name for her, and it meant a great deal to them. She
was his only child, and it had at first been a great disappointment to
every one that she was not a boy. But Raeburn had long ago ceased to
regret this, and the nickname referred more to Erica's capability of
being both son and daughter to him, able to help him in his work and at
the same time to brighten his home. Erica was very proud of her name,
for she had been called after her father's greatest friend, Eric
Haeberlein, a celebrated republican, who once during a long exile had
taken refuge in London. His views were in some respects more extreme
than Raeburn's, but in private life he was the gentlest and most
fascinating of men, and had quite won the heart of his little namesake.

As Mrs. Raeburn had surmised, Erica's father had at once seen that
something had gone wrong that day. The all-observing eyes, which had
noticed the hungry look in the beggar child's face, noticed at once that
his own child had been troubled.

"Somet