The note posted, I persecuted the clerk more than ever by my inquiries for letters, and I grumbled and growled at Niall and at Father Owen.
"Why on earth couldn't they answer, if it were only a line? What could they be thinking of? Didn't they know I must be intolerably anxious?"
This was the sum of my growling, and I continued it during all the Christmas holidays, when Winifred was with me; though, of course, I could say nothing to her. One afternoon, when I had been particularly anxious, I went out with the child, spent a half hour at the cathedral, which was a daily haunt of mine, and then tried to control my feverish agitation by getting into a restless crowd of shoppers who thronged the department stores.
Winifred was delighted. It was a new experience. She never could get over her wonder, though, at the number of people in New York city.
"Where do they all come from?" she cried; "and where do they live? Are there houses enough for them all?"
I assured her that most of them were housed, though there was a sad proportion of them homeless. I brought tears to her eyes with the account I gave her, as we passed on to the quieter Fifth Avenue, of the sufferings of the poor in all big cities.
She talked on this subject most of the way home; and when I would have bought her some choice candies she begged me to give the money instead to the poor. This we did. I handed her the amount, with a little added thereto, and advised her to divide it amongst more than one. We met a blind man, and she gave him an alms; next was a miserable child, and after that a very old woman.
"There we have the Holy Family complete," I remarked; and her face lighted up at the suggestion.
"There are so many poor people here!" she said. "There were plenty of poor people in Ireland too; but I don't think they were quite as poor as these, and the neighbors always helped them."
"The poverty of a great city is worse, I think," I assented, "than it ever is in country places."