just man, Sir, and give me back my son.'

'You are desperate,' said the gentleman, taking out his snuff-box, 'and
I am sorry for you.'

'I AM desperate,' returned the woman, 'and you have made me so. Give
me back my son, to work for these helpless children. Be a just man,
Sir, and, as you have had mercy upon this boy, give me back my son!'

The child had seen and heard enough to know that this was not a place
at which to ask for alms. She led the old man softly from the door,
and they pursued their journey.

With less and less of hope or strength, as they went on, but with an
undiminished resolution not to betray by any word or sigh her sinking
state, so long as she had energy to move, the child, throughout the
remainder of that hard day, compelled herself to proceed: not even
stopping to rest as frequently as usual, to compensate in some measure
for the tardy pace at which she was obliged to walk. Evening was
drawing on, but had not closed in, when--still travelling among the
same dismal objects--they came to a busy town.

Faint and spiritless as they were, its streets were insupportable.
After humbly asking for relief at some few doors, and being repulsed,
they agreed to make their way out of it as speedily as they could, and
try if the inmates of any lone house beyond, would have more pity on
their exhausted state.

They were dragging themselves along through the last street, and the
child felt that the time was close at hand when her enfeebled powers
would bear no more. There appeared before them, at this juncture,
going in the same direction as themselves, a traveller on foot, who,
with a portmanteau strapped to his back, leaned upon a stout stick as
he walked, and read from a book which he held in his other hand.

It was not an easy matter to come up with him, and beseech his aid, for
he walked fast, and was a little distance in advance. At length, he
stopped, to look more attentively at some passage in his book.
Animated with a ray of hope, the child shot on before her grandfather,
and, going close to the stranger without rousing him by the sound of
her footsteps, began, in a few faint words, to implore his help.

He turned his head. The child clapped her hands together, uttered a
wild shriek, and fell senseless at his feet.

CHAPTER 46

It was the poor schoolmaster. No other than the poor schoolmaster.
Scarcely less moved and surprised by the sight of the child than she
had been on rec