“Have you had any lunch, dear?” The “charity lady’s” hand rested softly on the tangled mat of hair.
“N-nothing—nothing,” the child echoed her mother’s words.
Miss Naughton rose abruptly. She dared not let her feelings get the better of her. “I am going to get some groceries.” She sought for an excuse to get away for a moment from the misery that overwhelmed her. “I’ll be back soon.”
“Bitter is me!” wailed Mrs. Ravinsky, as the “charity lady” left the room. “I can never lift up my head with other people alike. I feel myself lower than a thief, just because I got a husband who holds himself with God all day.”
She cracked the knuckles of her bony fingers. “Gottuniu! Listen better to my prayer! Send on him only a quick death. Maybe if I was a widow, people would take pity on me and save me from this gehenna of charity.”
Ten minutes later Miss Naughton returned with a bag of supplies. “I am going to fix some lunch for you.” She measured cocoa into a battered saucepan. “And soon the boy will come with enough groceries for the whole week.”
“Please, please,” begged Mrs. Ravinsky. “I can’t eat now—I can’t.”
“But the child? She needs nutritious food at once.”
Rachel’s sunken little chest rose and fell with her frightened heartbeat as she hid her face in her mother’s lap.