want our breakfast! We want to get up! Mary, Mary, do come! please
come!'

She was instantly in what might ordinarily have been a light,
cheerful room, but which was in all the dreariness of gray cinders,
exhausted night-light, curtained windows, and fragments of the last
meal. In each of two cane cribs was sitting up a forlorn child, with
loose locks of dishevelled hair, pale thin cheeks glazed with tears,
staring eyes, and mouths rounded with amaze at the apparition. One
dropped down and hid under the bed-clothes; the other remained
transfixed, as her visitor advanced, saying, 'Well, my dear, you
called Mary, and here I am.'

'Not our own Mary,' said the child, distrustfully.

'See if I can't be your own Mary.'

'You can't. You can't give us our breakfast.'

'Oh, I am so hungry!' from the other crib; and both burst into the
feeble sobs of exhaustion. Recovering from fever, and still fasting
at half-past nine! Mary was aghast, and promised an instant supply.

'Don't go;' and a bird-like little hand seized her on either side.
'Mary never came to bed, and nobody has been here all the morning,
and we can't bear to be alone.'

'I was only looking for the bell.'

'It is of no use; Minna did jump out and ring, but nobody will come.'