, but only just a tramp, who, she
feared, was preying on the good old woman. Still the cruel famine
cut sharp enough to penetrate all hearts; and Sylvia, an hour after
the conversation recorded above, was much touched, on her return
from Jeremiah Foster's with the little merry, chattering Bella, at
seeing the feeble steps of one, whom she knew by description must be
widow Dobson's lodger, turn up from the newly-cut road which was to
lead to the terrace walk around the North Cliff, a road which led to
no dwelling but widow Dobson's. Tramp, and vagrant, he might be in
the eyes of the law; but, whatever his character, Sylvia could see
him before her in the soft dusk, creeping along, over the bridge,
often stopping to rest and hold by some support, and then going on
again towards the town, to which she and happy little Bella were
wending.

A thought came over her: she had always fancied that this unknown
man was some fierce vagabond, and had dreaded lest in the lonely bit
of road between widow Dobson's cottage and the peopled highway, he
should fall upon her and rob her if he learnt that she had money
with her; and several times she had gone away without leaving the
little gift she had intended, because she imagined that she had seen
the door of the small chamber in the 'lean-to' open softly while she
was there, as if the occupant (whom widow Dobson spoke of as never
leaving the house before dusk, excepting once a week) were listening
for the chink of the coin in her little leathern purse. Now that she
saw him walking before her with heavy languid steps, this fear gave
place to pity; she remembered her mother's gentle superstition which
had prevented her from ever sending the hungry empty away, for fear
lest she herself should come to need bread.

'Lassie,' said she to little Bella, who held a cake which Jeremiah's
housekeeper had given her tight in her hand, 'yon poor man theere is
hungry; will Bella give him her cake, and mother will make her
another to-morrow twice as big?'

For this consideration, and with the feeling of satisfaction which a
good supper not an hour ago gives even to the hungry stomach of a
child of three years old, Bella, after some thought, graciously
assented to the sacrifice.

Sylvia stopped, the cake in her hand, and turned her back to the
town, and to the slow wayfarer in front. Under the cover of her
shawl she slipped a half-crown deep into the crumb of the cake, and
then restoring it to lit