"No, I ain't," answered the little girl, remembering, as she said the words, that she must have stayed full half an hour by that warm stove.
"I know it don't take you all this time to get that candle and a bit of bread; and there's yer brother been whining the whole time you've been gone."
The voice was sharp with pain and suffering, and at the same moment little Bill began his whining again.
The poor little girl lighted the farthing candle and cut her brother a piece of bread, then placed another by her mother's side, and lastly seized, rather than took, a piece herself, and sat down by the tiny fire to eat it.
But as she ate the first food she had tasted that day, before her eyes came up a picture, living as it were, and she saw over again a Kingly Stranger knocking for admittance, and promising to enter and sup with those who opened to Him.
The little girl glanced round the wretched room: no loving hand had been there to put it tidy, no hope had entered it to make it bright, no relief had come to cheer and comfort.
All that dreary Christmas Day, her mother had lain moaning on her miserable straw, and her little crippled brother had cried for food since early dawn, when the Christmas bells had sounded on the frosty air.
Ah! no help, no succour, no happiness; nothing but want, and sin, and misery.
An hour before, a neighbour, pitying the wretchedness of the poor starving family, had made her way up the dark stairs.
"It ain't much I've got to give," she said abruptly, "but on Christmas night, I don't like to feel as you've not had a bit in your mouths all day; so here's sixpence, and you're kindly welcome."