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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 omnibus, this time bound for Tottenham Court Road, and was, after some dreary jolting, set down at her final destination–a dirty alley in the worst part of Seven Dials. Entering it, she was hailed with a shout of derisive laughter from some rough-looking men and women, who were standing grouped round a low gin-shop at the corner.

“Here’s Liz!” cried one. “Here’s Liz and the bloomin’ kid!”

“Now, old gel, fork out! How much ‘ave you got, Liz? Treat us to a drop all round!”

Liz waked past them steadily; the conspicuous curve of her upper lip came into full play, and her eyes flashed disdainfully, but she said nothing. Her silence exasperated a tangle-haired, cat-faced girl of seventeen years, who, more than half drunk, sat on the ground, clasping her knees with both arms and rocking herself lazily to and fro.

“Mother Mawks!” cried she, “Mother Mawks! You’re wanted! Here’s Liz come back with your babby!”

As if her words had been a powerful incantation to summon forth an evil spirit, a door in one of the miserable houses was thrown open, and a stout woman, nearly naked to the waist, with a swollen, blotched, and most hideous countenance, rushed out furiously, and darting at Liz, shook her violently by the arm.

“Where’s my shullin’?” she yelled, “where’s my gin? Out with it! Out with my shullin’ an’ fourpence! None of yer sneakin’ ways with me; a bargain’s a bargain all the world over! Yer’re making a fortin’ with my babby–yer know y’ are; pays yer a good deal better than yer old trade! Don’t say it don’t–yer know it do. Yer’ll not find such a sickly kid anywheres, an’ it’s the sickly kids wot pays an’ moves the ‘arts of the kyind ladies an’ good gentlemen”–this with an imitative whine that excited the laughter and applause of her hearers. “Yer’ve got it cheap, I kin tell yer, an’ if yer don’t pay up reg’lar, there’s others that’ll take the chance, an’ thankful too!”

She stopped for lack of breath, and Liz spoke quietly:

“It’s all right, Mother Mawks,” she said, with an attempt at a smile; “here’s your shilling, here’s the four pennies for the gin. I don’t owe you anything for the child now.” She stopped and hesitated, looking down tenderly at the frail creature in her arms; then added, almost pleadingly, “It’s asleep now. May I take it with me to-night?”