opened
the door.

"Please, ma'am, is this Miss Olcott's?" asked a trembling voice on
the piazza. A shabby woman stood looking at them with wild eyes; her
gray hair had escaped from the torn shawl that was pinned over her
head, and stray locks blew across her face.

Lucy did not recognize her. "I will speak to you in a moment," she
said.

An awkward pause followed, each waiting for the other to speak.

"I will come when you send for me," said Redding, without looking at
her, and, turning abruptly, he strode down the steps and out into
the dusk.

Lucy caught her breath and started forward, then she remembered the
woman.

"What is it?" she asked listlessly.

The woman stepped forward, and put out a hand to steady herself
against the door; her face was distorted, and her voice came in
gasps.

"You said I was to come if I needed you. It's Jimmy, ma'am--he's
dead!"

IT may be experience of suffering makes one especially tender to the
heart-aches of others; at any rate, the article that Lucy Olcott
wrote for the paper that night held the one touch of nature that
makes the whole world kin. She had taken Aunt Chloe, the old colored
servant, and gone home with Mrs. Wiggs, relieving as far as possible
the immediate need of the family. Then she had come home and written
their story, telling it simply, but with the passionate earnestness
of one who, for the first time, has come into contact with poverty
and starvation. She told of the plucky struggle made by the boy, of
his indomitable courage, of his final defeat, and she ended by
asking help of any kind for the destitute family.

A week later she sat at her desk bewildered. Her article, written on
the impulse of the moment, with the one thought of making people
understand, had fulfilled its mission. For seven days she had done
nothing but answer questions and notes, and receive contributions
for the Wiggs family. Money had arrived from all over the State, and
from every class of society. Eichenstine Bros. sent fifty dollars,
and six ragged newsboys came to present thirty cents. A lavender
note, with huge monogram and written in white ink, stated that some
of the girls of the "Gay Burlesque Troupe" sent a few dimes to the
"kid's" mother. The few dimes amounted to fifteen dollars. Mrs. Van
Larkin's coachman had to wait with her note while Lucy answered the
questions of a lame old negro who had brought a quarter.

"Maria done tole me what was writ in de papah 'bout d