enemy, in a crowd. At last she stopped before a flight of steps, at the
foot of which was a landing place for half a dozen little boats,
employed to carry passengers between the two sides of the port, at times
when the drawbridge above was closed for the passage of vessels. While
she stood she was witness of the following scene:

A man, in a red woollen fisherman's cap, was sitting on the top of the
steps, smoking the short stump of a pipe, with his face to the water.
Happening to turn about, his eye fell on a little child, hurrying along
the quay toward a dingy tenement close at hand, with a jug in its arms.

'Hullo, youngster!' cried the man; 'what have you got there? Come here.'

The little child looked back, but, instead of obeying, only quickened
its walk.

'The devil take you, come here!' repeated the man, angrily, 'or I'll
wring your beggarly neck. You won't obey your own uncle, eh?'

The child stopped, and ruefully made its way to its relative, looking
around several times toward the house, as if to appeal to some counter
authority.

'Come, make haste!' pursued the man, 'or I shall go and fetch you.
Move!'

The child advanced to within half a dozen paces of the steps, and then
stood still, eyeing the man cautiously, and hugging the jug tight.

'Come on, you little beggar, come up close.'

The youngster kept a stolid silence, however, and did not budge.
Suddenly its self-styled uncle leaned forward, swept out his arm,
clutched hold of its little sunburnt wrist, and dragged it toward him.

'Why didn't you come when you were called?' he asked, running his
disengaged hand into the infant's frowsy mop of hair, and shaking its
head until it staggered. 'Why didn't you come, you unmannerly little
brute, eh?--eh?--eh?' accompanying every interrogation with a renewed
shake.

The child made no answer. It simply and vainly endeavored to twist its
neck around under the man's grip, and transmit some call for succor to
the house.

'Come, keep your head straight. Look at me, and answer me. What's in
that jug? Don't lie.'

'Milk.'

'Who for?'

'Granny.'

'Granny be hanged.'

The man disengaged his hands, lifted the jug from the child's feeble
grasp, tilted it toward the light, surveyed its contents, put it to his
lips, and exhausted them. The child, although liberated, did not
retreat. It stood watching its uncle drink until he lowered the jug.
Then, as he met its eyes, it said:

'It was for the baby.'