of the sentiment; the moral responsibility rested with the performer.

The principal figure that I now mourn over as lost forever is one
that may have been familiar to many of my readers. It was that of a
dark-complexioned, black-eyed, foreign-looking woman, who supported
in her arms a sickly baby. As a pathological phenomenon the baby was
especially interesting, having presented the Hippocratic face and other
symptoms of immediate dissolution, without change, for the past three
years. The woman never verbally solicited alms. Her appearance was
always mute, mysterious, and sudden. She made no other appeal than
that which the dramatic tableau of herself and baby suggested, with an
outstretched hand and deprecating eye sometimes superadded. She usually
stood in my doorway, silent and patient, intimating her presence, if
my attention were preoccupied, by a slight cough from her baby, whom I
shall always believe had its part to play in this little pantomime, and
generally obeyed a secret signal from the maternal hand. It was useless
for me to refuse alms, to plead business, or affect inattention. She
never moved; her position was always taken with an appearance of latent
capabilities of endurance and experience in waiting which never failed
to impress me with awe and the futility of any hope of escape. There was
also something in the reproachful expression of her eye which
plainly said to me, as I bent over my paper, "Go on with your mock
sentimentalities and simulated pathos; portray the imaginary sufferings
of your bodiless creations, spread your thin web of philosophy, but look
you, sir, here is real misery! Here is genuine suffering!" I confess
that this artful suggestion usually brought me down. In three minutes
after she had thus invested the citadel I usually surrendered at
discretion, without a gun having been fired on either side. She received
my offering and retired as mutely and mysteriously as she had appeared.
Perhaps it was well for me that she did not know her strength. I might