ith its
cuttings and scraps and litter of fabrics, she said:

"It is no use, John. I shall have to work here like this all my
life--work here alone. For I don't love you, John. No, I don't. I
thought I did, but it is a mistake."

"You mean it?" asked John, bringing up the words in a great gasp.

"Yes," she said, white and trembling and putting out her hands as if to
beg for his mercy. And then--big, lumbering fool--he turned around
and strode down the stairs and stood at the corner in the beating rain
waiting for his car. It came along at length, spluttering on the wet
rails and spitting out blue fire, and he took his shift after a gruff
"Good night" to Johnson, the man he relieved.

He was glad the rain was bitter cold and drove in his face fiercely.
He rejoiced at the cruelty of the wind, and when it hustled pedestrians
before it, lashing them, twisting their clothes, and threatening their
equilibrium, he felt amused. He was pleased at the chill in his bones
and at the hunger that tortured him. At least, at first he thought it
was hunger till he remembered that he had just eaten. The hours passed
confusedly. He had no consciousness of time. But it must have been
late,--near midnight,--judging by the fact that there were few persons
visible anywhere in the black storm, when he noticed a little figure
sitting at the far end of the car. He had not seen the child when she
got on, but all was so curious and wild to him that evening--he himself
seemed to himself the most curious and the wildest of all things--that
it was not surprising that he should not have observed the little
creature.

She was wrapped in a coat so much too large that it had become frayed
at the bottom from dragging on the pavement. Her hair hung in unkempt
stringiness about her bent shoulders, and her feet were covered with old
arctics, many sizes too big, from which the soles hung loose.

Beside the little figure was a chest of dark wood, with curiously
wrought hasps. From this depended a stout strap by which it could be
carried over the shoulders. John Billings stared in, fascinated by the
poor little thing with its head sadly drooping upon its breast, its thin
blue hands relaxed upon its lap, and its whole attitude so suggestive
of hunger, loneliness, and fatigue, that he made up his mind he would
collect no fare from it.

"It will need its nickel for breakfast," he said to himself. "The
company can stand this for once. Or, come to think of i