he night that closed this early winter day was raw and cold, the
easterly wind still prevailing, with occasional dashes of rain. In a
cellar without fire, except a few bits of smouldering wood in an old
clay furnace, that gave no warmth to the damp atmosphere, and with
scarcely an article of furniture, a woman half stupid from drink sat on
a heap of straw, her bed, with her hands clasped about her knees. She
was rocking her body backward and forward, and crooning to herself in a
maudlin way. A lighted tallow candle stood on the floor of the cellar,
and near it a cup of water, in which was a spoon and some bread soaking.

"Mother Hewitt!" called a voice from the cellar door that opened on the
street. "Here, take the baby!"

Mother Hewitt, as she was called, started up and made her way with an
unsteady gait to the front part of the cellar, where a woman in not
much better condition than herself stood holding out a bundle of rags in
which a fretting baby was wrapped.

"Quick, quick!" called the woman. "And see here," she continued as
Mother Hewitt reached her arms for the baby; "I don't believe you're
doing the right thing. Did he have plenty of milk last night and this
morning?"

"Just as much as he would take."

"I don't believe it. He's been frettin' and chawin' at the strings of
his hood all the afternoon, when he ought to have been asleep, and he's
looking punier every day. I believe you're giving him only bread and
water."

But Mother Hewitt protested that she gave him the best of new milk, and
as much as he would take.

"Well, here's a quarter," said the woman, handing Mother Hewitt some
money; "and see that he is well fed to-night and to-morrow morning. He's
getting 'most too deathly in his face. The people won't stand it if they
think a baby's going to die--the women 'specially, and most of all the
young things that have lost babies. One of these--I know 'em by the way
they look out of their eyes--came twice to-day and stood over him sad
and sorrowful like; she didn't give me anything. I've seen her before.
Maybe she's his mother. As like as nor, for nobody knows where he came
from. Wasn't Sally Long's baby; always thought she'd stole him from
somebody. Now, mind, he's to have good milk every day, or I'll change
his boarding-house. D'ye hear!"

And laughing at this sally, the woman turned away to spend in a night's
debauch the money she had gained in half a day's begging.

Left to herself, Mother Hewitt