her child," the woman proceeded, turning to me. "The food my boy
has got for them in his basket will be the first food the mother
has tasted today. She's pawned everything by this time; and what
she's to do unless you help her is more than I can say. The
doctor does what he can; but he told me today, if she wasn't
better nourished, it was no use sending for _him_. Follow the
boy; and see for yourself if it's the lady you know."

I listened to the woman, still feeling persuaded that I had acted
under a delusion in going to her house. How was it possible to
associate the charming object of my heart's worship with the
miserable story of destitution which I had just heard? I stopped
the boy on the first landing, and told him to announce me simply
as a doctor, who had been informed of Mrs. Brand's illness, and
who had called to see her.

We ascended a second flight of stairs, and a third. Arrived now
at the top of the house, the boy knocked at the door that was
nearest to us on the landing. No audible voice replied. He opened
the door without ceremony, and went in. I waited outside to hear
what was said. The door was left ajar. If the voice of "Mrs.
Brand" was (as I believed it would prove to be) the voice of a
stranger, I resolved to offer her delicately such help as lay
within my power, and to return forthwith to my post under "the
shadow of Saint Paul's."

The first voice that spoke to the boy was the voice of a child.

"I'm so hungry, Jemmy--I'm so hungry!"

"All right, missy--I've got you something to eat."

"Be quick, Jemmy! Be quick!"

There was a momentary pause; and then I heard the boy's voice
once more.

"There's a slice of bread-and-butter, missy. You must wait for
your egg till I can boil it. Don't you eat too fast, or you'll
choke yourself. What's the matter with your mamma? Are you
asleep, ma'am?"

I could bar ely hear the answering voice--it was so faint; and it
uttered but one word: "No!"

The boy spoke again.

"Cheer up, missus. There's a doctor outside waiting to see you."

This time there was no audible reply. The boy showed himself to
me at the door. "Please to come in, sir. _I_ can't make anything
of her."

It would have been misplaced delicacy to have hesitated any
longer to enter the room. I went in.

There, at the opposite end of a miserably furnished bed-chamber,
lying back feebly in a tattered old arm-chair, was one more among
the thousands of forlorn creatures, starving that night in the
great city. A white handkerchief was laid over her face as if to
screen it from the flame of the fire hard by. She lifted the
handkerchief, startled by the sound of my footsteps as I entered
the room. I looked at her, and saw in the white, wan, death-like
face the face of the woman I loved!

For a moment the horror of the discovery turned me faint and
giddy. In another instant I was kneeling by her chair. My arm was
round her--her head lay on my shoulder. She was past speaking,
past crying out: she trembled silently, and that was all. I said
nothing. No words passed my lips, no tears came to my relief. I
held her to me; and she let me hold her. The child, devouring its
bread-and-butter at a little round table, stared at us. The boy,
on his knees before the grate, mending the fire, stared at us.
And the slow minutes lagged on; and the buzzing of a fly in a
corner was the only sound in the room.

The instincts of the profession to which I had been trained,
rather than any active sense of the horror of the situation in
which I was placed, roused me at last. She was starving! I saw it
in the deadly color of her skin; I felt it in the faint, quick
flutter of her pulse. I called the boy to me, and sent him to the
nearest public-house for wine and biscuits. "Be quick about it,"
I said; "and you shall have more money for yourself than ever you
had in your life!" The boy looked at me, spit on the coins in his
hand, said, "That's for luck!" and ran out of the room as never
boy ran yet.

I turned to speak my first words of comfort to the mother. The
cry of the child stopped me.

"I'm so hungry! I'm so hungry!"

I set more food before the famished child and kissed her. She
looked up at me with wondering eyes.

"Are you a new papa?" the little creature asked. "My other papa
never kisses me."

I looked at the mother. Her eyes were closed; the tears flowed
slowly over her worn, white cheeks. I took her frail hand in


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