ing off the children at the same time! The house
was actually on her homeward route. The economy of it tickled her,
made her overestimate the chances of capture. As she packed the
motley, far-spreading heap into the symmetry of her sack, pressing and
squeezing the clothes incredibly tighter and tighter till it seemed a
magic sack that could swallow up even the Holloway Clothing Emporium,
Natalya's brain revolved feverish fancy-pictures of the coming
adventure.

Leaving the bag in the basement passage, she ran to fetch a cab.
Usually the hiring of the vehicle occupied Natalya half an hour. She
would harangue the Christian cabmen on the rank, pleading her poverty,
and begging to be conveyed with her goods for a ridiculous sum. At
first none of them would take notice of the old Jewish crone, but
would read their papers in contemptuous indifference. But gradually,
as they remained idly on the rank, the endless stream of persuasion
would begin to percolate, and at last one would relent, half out of
pity, and would end by bearing the sack gratuitously on his shoulder
from the house to his cab. Often there were two sacks, quite filling
the interior of a four-wheeler, and then Natalya would ride
triumphantly beside her cabby on the box, the two already the best of
friends. Things went ill if Natalya did not end by trading off
something in the sacks against the fare--at a new profit.

But to-day she was too excited to strike more than a mediocre bargain.
The cumbrous sack was hoisted into the cab. Natalya sprang in beside
it, and in a resolute voice bade the driver draw up for a moment at
the Elkman home.

V

The unwonted phenomenon of a cab brought Becky to the door ere her
grandmother could jump out. She was still under ten, but prematurely
developed in body as in mind. There was something unintentionally
insolent in her precocity, in her habitual treatment of adults as
equals; but now her face changed almost to a child's, and with a glad
tearful cry of 'Oh, grandmother!' she sprang into the old woman's
arms.

It was the compensation for little Joseph's 'mamma.' Tears ran down
the old woman's cheeks as she hugged the strayed lamb to her breast.

A petulant infantile wail came from within, but neither noted it.

'Where is your step-mother, my poor angel?' Natalya asked in a half
whisper.

Becky's forehead gloomed in an ugly frown. Her face became a woman's
again. 'One o'clock the public-houses open on Sundays,' she