aiting for a reply, she re-entered the hall. A young man, the
same who had been speaking, met her at the door.

"Angela!" he exclaimed. "You should not be out there in the cold!" She
smiled absently. "Did you see her, Robert?"

"That terrible old woman? Yes, I saw her. A hopeless case, I fear."

Angela's eyes kept their absent look.

"It was awful to see her go away like that, into the cold and snow,
hungry and half-clad!" she said.

The young man leaned nearer. "Angela," he whispered. "You must not let
these things sink into your heart as you do, or you cannot bear the work
you have undertaken. As for that old creature, it is terrible to think
of her, but she seemed to me beyond our reach."

"But not beyond God's reach _through us_!" said Angela.

Meantime old Marg was facing the storm with rage and pain in her face
and in her heart. The streets were deserted, and lighted only by such
beams as found their way through the dirty windows of shops and saloons.
From these last came sounds of revelry and contention, and at one or
another the poor creature paused, listening without fear to the familiar
hubbub. Should she go in? Some one might give her a drink, to ease for a
time the terrible gnawing at her breast. Might? Yes; but more likely she
would be thrust out with jeers and curses, and, for some reason, old
Marg was in no mood to use the caustic wit and ready tongue that were
her only weapons. So she staggered on until the swarming tenement was
reached, stumbled up the five flights of unillumined stairs, and almost
fell headlong into the dismal garret which she called her home.

Feeling about in the darkness, she found a match and lit a bit of candle
which stopped the neck of an empty bottle. It burned uncertainly as if
reluctant to disclose the scene upon which its light fell. A
smoke-stained, sloping ceiling, a blackened floor, a shapeless mattress
heaped with rags, a deal box, a rusty stove resting upon two bricks,
supporting in its turn an ancient frying-pan, a chipped saucer, and a
battered tin can from which, when the scavenger business was good, old
Marg served afternoon tea--such were her home and all her personal
belongings.

There was no fire, nor any means of producing one, but upon the box was
spread a piece of paper containing a slice of bread and a soup-bone,
whereto clung some fragments of meat--the gift of a neighbor hardly less
wretched than herself.

The old woman's eyes glittered at the s