f which was
unknown to Liz; she only recognized it as a sort of large and somewhat
dull bank-holiday, when all London devoted itself to church-going
and the eating of roast beef and plum-pudding. The whole thing was
incomprehensible to her mind, but even her sad countenance was brighter
than usual on Christmas eve, and she felt almost gay, for had she not,
by means of a little extra starvation on her own part, been able to
buy a wondrous gold-and-crimson worsted bird suspended from an elastic
string, a bird which bobbed up and down to command in the most lively
and artistic manner? And had not her hired baby actually laughed at the
clumsy toy--laughed an elfish and weird laugh, the first it had ever
indulged in? And Liz had laughed too, for pure gladness in the child's
mirth, and the worsted bird became a sort of uncouth charm to make them
both merry.

But after Christmas had come and gone, and the melancholy days, the
last beating of the failing pulse of the Old Year, throbbed slowly
and heavily away, the baby took upon its wan visage a strange
expression--the solemn expression of worn-out and suffering age. Its
blue eyes grew more solemnly speculative and dreamy, and after a while
it seemed to lose all taste for the petty things of this world and the
low desires of mere humanity. It lay very quiet in Liz's arms; it never
cried, and was no longer fretful, and it seemed to listen with a sort of
mild approval to the tones of her voice as they rang out in the dreary
streets, through which, by day and night, she patiently wandered.
By-and-by the worsted bird, too, fell out of favour; it jumped and
glittered in vain; the baby surveyed it with an unmoved air of superior
wisdom, just as if it had suddenly found out what real birds were
like, and was not to be deceived into accepting so poor an imitation
of nature. Liz grew uneasy, but she had no one in whom to confide her
fears. She had been very regular in her payments to Mother Mawks, and
that irate lady, kept in order by her bull-dog of a husband, had been
of late very contented to let her have the child without further
interference. Liz knew well enough that no one in the miserable alley
where she dwelt would care whether the baby were ill or not. They would
tell her, "The more sickly the better for your trade." Besides, she was
jealous; she could not endure the idea of any one tending it or touching
it but herself. Children were often ailing, she thought, and if left to