ter out. Comforting herself as well as she could with this
reflection, she sat down in a dark corner on a cold door-step, and,
covering her face with both hands, wept as though her heart would break.

Gradually her sobs subsided, and, rising, she hurried away, shivering
with cold, for her thin cotton dress was a poor protection against the
night chills, and her ragged shawl was--gone with the baby.

In a few minutes she reached a part of the Whitechapel district where
some of the deepest poverty and wretchedness in London is to be found.
Turning into a labyrinth of small streets and alleys, she paused in the
neighbourhood of the court in which was her home--if such it could be
called.

"Is it worth while going back to him?" she muttered. "He nearly killed
baby, and it wouldn't take much to make him kill me. And oh! he was so
different--once!"

While she stood irresolute, the man of whom she spoke chanced to turn
the corner, and ran against her, somewhat roughly.

"Hallo! is that you?" he demanded, in tones that told too clearly where
he had been spending the night.

"Yes, Ned, it's me. I was just thinking about going home."

"Home, indeed--'stime to b'goin' home. Where'v you bin? The babby 'll
'v bin squallin' pretty stiff by this time."

"No fear of baby now," returned the wife almost defiantly; "it's gone."

"Gone!" almost shouted the husband. "You haven't murdered it, have
you?"

"No, but I've put it in safe keeping, where _you_ can't get at it, and,
now I know that, I don't care what you do to _me_."

"Ha! we'll see about that. Come along."

He seized the woman by the arm and hurried her towards their dwelling.

It was little better than a cellar, the door being reached by a descent
of five or six much-worn steps. To the surprise of the couple the door,
which was usually shut at that hour, stood partly open, and a bright
light shone within.

"Wastin' coal and candle," growled the man with an angry oath, as he
approached.

"Hetty didn't use to be so extravagant," remarked the woman, in some
surprise.

As she spoke the door was flung wide open, and an overgrown but very
handsome girl peered out.

"Oh! father, I thought it was your voice," she said. "Mother, is that
you? Come in, quick. Here's Bobby brought home in a cab with a broken
leg."

On hearing this the man's voice softened, and, entering the room, he
went up to a heap of straw in one corner whereon our little friend Bobby
Fr