hensible to her mind.

"As if I could pray!" she repeated, with a sort of derision. Then she
looked at the broad silver coin in her hand and the sleeping baby in her
arms. With a sudden impulse she dropped on her knees.

"Whoever you are," she muttered, addressing the statue above her, "it
seems you've got a child of your own; perhaps you'll help me to take
care of this one. It isn't mine; I wish it was! Anyway, I love it more
than its own mother does. I dare say you won't listen to the likes of
me, but if there was God anywhere about I'd ask Him to bless that
good soul that's lost her baby. I bless her with all my heart, but my
blessing ain't good for much. Ah!" and she surveyed anew the Virgin's
serene white countenance, "you just look as if you understood me; but
I don't believe you do. Never mind, I've said all I wanted to say this
time."

Her strange petition, or rather discourse, concluded, she rose and
walked away. The great doors of the church swung heavily behind her as
she stepped out and stood once more in the muddy street. It was raining
steadily--a fine, cold, penetrating rain. But the coin she held was a
talisman against outer discomforts, and she continued to walk on till
she came to a clean-looking dairy, where for a couple of pence she was
able to replenish the infant's long ago emptied feeding bottle; but she
purchased nothing for herself. She had starved all day, and was now too
faint to eat. Soon she entered an omnibus, and was driven to Charing
Cross, and alighting at the great station, brilliant with its electric
light, she paced up and down outside it, accosting several of the
passers-by and imploring their pity. One man gave her a penny; another,
young and handsome, with a flushed, intemperate face, and a look of his
fast-fading boyhood still about him, put his hand in his pocket and drew
out all the loose coppers it contained, amounting to three pennies and
an odd farthing, and, dropping them into her outstretched palm, said,
half gaily, half boldly: "You ought to do better than that with those
big eyes of yours!" She drew back and shuddered; he broke into a coarse
laugh, and went his way. Standing where he had left her, she seemed for
a time lost in wretched reflections; the fretful, wailing cry of the
child she carried roused her, and hushing it softly, she murmured, "Yes,
yes, darling, it is too wet and cold for you; we had better go." And
acting suddenly on her resolve, she hailed another