powerful fine, with naught but green trees an' posies a-blowin' an' a
growin' everywheres. There ain't many kitching areas there, though, I'm
told."

Liz went on, scarcely heeding him: "The baby seems to me like what the
country must be--all harmless and sweet and quiet; when I hold it so, my
heart gets peaceful somehow--I don't know why."

Again Jim looked speculative. He waved his bitten straw expressively.

"Ye've had 'sperience, Liz. Hain't ye met no man like wot ye could care
fur?"

Liz trembled, and her eyes grew wild..

"Men!" she cried, with bitterest scorn--"no men have come my way, only
brutes!"

Jim stared, but was silent; he had no fit answer ready. Presently Liz
spoke again, more softly:

"Jim, do you know I went into a great church to-day?"

"Worse luck!" said Jim, sententiously. "Church ain't no use nohow as far
as I can see."

"There was a figure there, Jim," went on Liz, earnestly, "of a Woman
holding up a Baby, and people knelt down before it. What do you s'pose
it was?"

"Can't say!" replied the puzzled Jim. "Are ye sure 't was a church? Most
like 't was a mooseum."

"No, no!" said Liz. "'T was a church for certain; there were folks
praying in it."

"Ah, well," growled Jim, gruffly, "much good it may do 'em! I'm not of
the prayin' sort. A woman an' a babby, did ye say? Don't ye get
such cranky notions into yer head, Liz! Women an' babbies are common
enough--too common, by a long chalk; an' as for prayin' to 'em--" Jim's
utter contempt and incredulity were too great for further expression,
and he turned away, wishing her a curt "Good-night!"

"Good-night!" said Liz, softly; and long after he had left her she
still sat silent, thinking, thinking, with the baby asleep in her arms,
listening to the rain as it dripped, dripped heavily, like clods falling
on a coffin lid. She was not a good woman--far from it. Her very motive
in hiring the infant at so much a day was entirely inexcusable; it was
simply to gain money upon false pretences--by exciting more pity than
would otherwise have been bestowed on her had she begged for herself
alone, without a child in her arms. At first she had carried the baby
about to serve as a mere trick of her trade, but the warm feel of its
little helpless body against her bosom day after day had softened her
heart toward its innocence and pitiful weakness, and at last she had
grown to love it with a strange, intense passion--so much that she would
willingly h