aid; "and I can take care of myself. Give it to Simple
Sally."

"You'll save her a beating, sir, for one night at least," said the other
woman. "We call her Simple Sally, because she's a little soft, poor
soul--hasn't grown up, you know, in her mind, since she was a child.
Give her some of your change, sir, and you'll be doing a kind thing."

All that is most unselfish, all that is most divinely compassionate and
self-sacrificing in a woman's nature, was as beautiful and as undefiled
as ever in these women--the outcasts of the hard highway!

Amelius turned to the girl. Her head had sunk on her bosom; she was half
asleep. She looked up as he approached her.

"Would you have been beaten to-night," he asked, "if you had not met
with me?"

"Father always beats me, sir," said Simple Sally, "if I don't bring
money home. He threw a knife at me last night. It didn't hurt much--it
only cut me here," said the girl, pointing to the plaster on her chin.

One of the women touched Amelius on the shoulder, and whispered to him.
"He's no more her father, sir, than I am. She's a helpless creature--and
he takes advantage of her. If I only had a place to take her to, he
should never set eyes on her again. Show the gentleman your bosom,
Sally."

She opened her poor threadbare little shawl. Over the lovely girlish
breast, still only growing to the rounded beauty of womanhood, there was
a hideous blue-black bruise. Simple Sally smiled, and said, "That _did_
hurt me, sir. I'd rather have the knife."

Some of the nearest drinkers at the bar looked round and laughed.
Amelius tenderly drew the shawl over the girl's cold bosom. "For God's
sake, let us get away from this place!" he said.

The influence of the cool night air completed Simple Sally's recovery.
She was able to eat now. Amelius proposed retracing his steps to the
provision-shop, and giving her the best food that the place afforded.
She preferred the bread-and-butter at the coffee-stall. Those thick
slices, piled up on the plate, tempted her as a luxury. On trying the
luxury, one slice satisfied her. "I thought I was hungry enough to eat
the whole plateful," said the girl, turning away from the stall, in the
vacantly submissive manner which it saddened Amelius to see. He bought
more of the bread-and-butter, on the chance that her appetite might
revive. While he was wrapping it in a morsel of paper, one of her elder
companions touched him and whispered, "There he is, sir!" Ame