ft
with the paltriest allowance. You should have seen the kind of diet on
which she habitually lived. Like all the women of her class, utterly
ignorant and helpless in the matter of preparing food, she abandoned
the attempt to cook anything, and expended her few pence daily on
whatever happened to tempt her in a shop, when meal-time came round. In
the present state of her health she often suffered from a morbid
appetite and fed on things of incredible unwholesomeness. Thus, there
was a kind of cake exposed in a window in Rosoman Street, two layers of
pastry with half an inch of something like very coarse mincemeat
between; it cost a halfpenny a square, and not seldom she ate four, or
even six, of these squares, as heavy as lead, making this her dinner. A
cookshop within her range exhibited at midday great dough-puddings,
kept hot by jets of steam that came up through the zinc on which they
lay; this food was cheap and satisfying, and Pennyloaf often regaled
both herself and the children on thick slabs of it. Pease-pudding also
attracted her; she fetched it from the pork-butcher's in a little
basin, which enabled her to bring away at the same time a spoonful or
two of gravy from the joints of which she was not rich enough to
purchase a cut. Her drink was tea; she had the pot on the table all
day, and kept adding hot water. Treacle she purchased now and then, but
only as a treat when her dinner had cost even less than usual; she did
not venture to buy more than a couple of ounces at a time, knowing by
experience that she could not resist this form of temptation, and must
eat and eat till all was finished.

Bob flung sixpence on the table. He was ashamed of himself--you will
not understand him if you fail to recognise that--but the shame only
served to make him fret under his bondage. Was he going to be tied to
Pennyloaf all his life, with a family constantly increasing?
Practically he had already made a resolve to be free before very long;
the way was not quite clear to him as yet. But he went to work still
brooding over Clem's words of the night before.

Pennyloaf let the fire go out, locked the elder child into the room for
safety against accidents, and set forth for the hospital. It rained
heavily, and the wind rendered her umbrella useless. She had to stand
for a long time at a street-corner before the omnibus came; the water
soaked into her leaky shoes, but that didn't matter; it was the child
on whose account she