and affectionate
manner in which the woman's thin, out-spread fingers grasped it.

Hurrying on to the bridge till she reached the middle of one of the
arches, she paused and looked over. The Thames was black and gurgling,
for it was intensely dark, and the tide half ebb at the time. The
turbid waters chafed noisily on the stone piers as if the sins and
sorrows of the great city had been somehow communicated to them.

But the distance from the parapet to the surface of the stream was
great. It seemed awful in the woman's eyes. She shuddered and drew
back.

"Oh! for courage--only for one minute!" she murmured, clasping the
bundle closer to her breast.

The action drew off a corner of the scanty rag which she called a shawl,
and revealed a small and round, yet exceedingly thin face, the black
eyes of which seemed to gaze in solemn wonder at the scene of darkness
visible which was revealed. The woman stood between two lamps in the
darkest place she could find, but enough of light reached her to glitter
in the baby's solemn eyes as they met her gaze, and it made a pitiful
attempt to smile as it recognised its mother.

"God help me! I can't," muttered the woman with a shiver, as if an
ice-block had touched her heart.

She drew the rag hastily over the baby's head again, pressed it closer
to her breast, retraced her steps, and dived into the shadows from which
she had emerged.

This was one of the "lower orders" to whom Sir Richard Brandon had such
an objection, whom he found it, he said, so difficult to deal with, (no
wonder, for he never tried to deal with them at all, in any sense worthy
of the name), and whom it was, he said, useless to assist, because all
_he_ could do in such a vast accumulation of poverty would be a mere
drop in the bucket. Hence Sir Richard thought it best to keep the drop
in his pocket where it could be felt and do good--at least to himself,
rather than dissipate it in an almost empty bucket. The bucket,
however, was not quite empty--thanks to a few thousands of people who
differed from the knight upon that point.

The thin woman hastened through the streets as regardless of passers-by
as they were of her, until she reached the neighbourhood of Commercial
Street, Spitalfields.

Here she paused and looked anxiously round her. She had left the main
thoroughfare, and the spot on which she stood was dimly lighted.
Whatever she looked or waited for, did not, however, soon appear, for
s