continued to hold it the weight increased, sinking deeper, and
penetrating her with a strange sense of weakness, as though the child
entered into her and became a part of herself.

She looked up, and saw Nettie's eyes resting on her with tenderness and
exultation.

"Wouldn't it be too lovely for anything if she could grow up to be just
like you? Of course I know she never COULD--but mothers are always
dreaming the craziest things for their children."

Lily clasped the child close for a moment and laid her back in her
mother's arms.

"Oh, she must not do that--I should be afraid to come and see her too
often!" she said with a smile; and then, resisting Mrs. Struther's
anxious offer of companionship, and reiterating the promise that of
course she would come back soon, and make George's acquaintance, and see
the baby in her bath, she passed out of the kitchen and went alone down
the tenement stairs.

As she reached the street she realized that she felt stronger and
happier: the little episode had done her good. It was the first time she
had ever come across the results of her spasmodic benevolence, and the
surprised sense of human fellowship took the mortal chill from her heart.

It was not till she entered her own door that she felt the reaction of a
deeper loneliness. It was long after seven o'clock, and the light and
odours proceeding from the basement made it manifest that the
boarding-house dinner had begun. She hastened up to her room, lit the
gas, and began to dress. She did not mean to pamper herself any longer,
to go without food because her surroundings made it unpalatable. Since it
was her fate to live in a boarding-house, she must learn to fall in with
the conditions of the life. Nevertheless she was glad that, when she
descended to the heat and glare of the dining-room, the repast was nearly
over.

In her own room again, she was seized with a sudden fever of activity.
For weeks past she had been too listless and indifferent to set her
possessions in order, but now she began to examine systematically the
contents of her drawers and cupboard. She had a few handsome dresses
left--survivals of her last phase of splendour, on the Sabrina and in
London--but when she had been obliged to part with her maid she had given
the woman a generous share of her cast-off apparel. The remaining
dresses, though they had lost their freshness, still kept the long
unerring lines, the sweep and amplitude of the grea