e
fist into his grasp. And then she scrambled up and came and nestled
confidingly against him. She couldn't see his face then, and he allowed
the tears of a strong man who is overcome before he has understood--who
wonders at himself--he allowed those tears to streak his cheeks and did
not wipe them away.

Walker Farr was too perturbed to soliloquize just then in his
philosopher's style, but he did realize that some part of his altruism
had come out of its trance.

And after he had knelt there on the floor for a time he rose and took
the child in his arms and sat down in a creaky rocking-chair and crooned
under his breath, and was astonished to find that she had gone sound
asleep. He stared into the dusk that was gathering outside the dormer
window and wondered what ailed him.

He had heard many feet thudding on the stairs below. The workers were
returning. The beehive was filling. There were many voices, clatter of
dishes, chatter of patois.

He wondered how well the woman Sirois was known in the house--whether
she had relatives--how soon somebody would come and beat upon the door.

He wondered just what disposition was made of children left in this
manner.

If the woman had relatives who were forced to take the child it meant
more of this horrible tenement life. The child in his arms was pale and
thin; her bones seemed as inconsiderable as a bird's.

He did not know much about children's homes, orphanages, institutions
for the reception of the homeless, but it seemed to him that such a
tiny, frail little girl would be very, very lonely in such a place.

The skies grew dark without. He was cramped because he had sat for hours
in one position, fearing to waken her. But when he moved she did not
waken--he did not understand how soundly childhood can sleep. He laid
her on the foot of the narrow bed and looked about the room, shielding
a match with his hands. He had resolved to carry her out of that fetid,
overcrowded babel of a tenement. Where? He did not know. He hunted to
find her belongings. He found a few clothes. There was no receptacle in
which he could pack them. He folded them and crowded the articles in his
pockets. He stuffed in the doll and the rude playthings and hooked the
basket doll-carriage upon his arm. She did not waken when he picked her
up. He tiptoed down the stairs and nobody noticed him, In his own dizzy
mind he could not determine whether he felt most like a thief or a
lunatic. At any rate