been very pale; and the glittering tear-drops hung on the
long-curled eye-lashes. With his soft voice and pleading looks, he
uttered, in his pretty broken English, the words--

"Hungry! so hungry."

And as if to aid by gesture the effect of the solitary word, he
pointed to his mouth, with its white quivering lips.

Mary answered him impatiently, "O lad, hunger is nothing--nothing!"

And she rapidly passed on. But her heart upbraided her the next
minute with her unrelenting speech, and she hastily entered her door
and seized the scanty remnant of food which the cupboard contained,
and she retraced her steps to the place where the little hopeless
stranger had sunk down by his mute companion in loneliness and
starvation, and was raining down tears as he spoke in some foreign
tongue, with low cries for the far distant "Mamma mia!"

With the elasticity of heart belonging to childhood he sprang up as
he saw the food the girl brought; she whose face, lovely in its woe,
had tempted him first to address her; and, with the graceful
courtesy of his country, he looked up and smiled while he kissed her
hand, and then poured forth his thanks, and shared her bounty with
his little pet companion. She stood an instant, diverted from the
thought of her own grief by the sight of his infantine gladness; and
then bending down and kissing his smooth forehead, she left him, and
sought to be alone with her agony once more.

She re-entered the house, locked the door, and tore off her bonnet,