But Juliet had no wish to enter into a discussion. She now rose from her cosy chair by the fire, and announced her intention of going out. It was a bitterly cold day, as Juliet felt as she ran upstairs to get ready. In a few minutes she came down comfortably wrapped in her thick, fur-trimmed coat.
As she passed out of the house, she found a pitiable group on the doorstep. A ragged, draggled, wretched-looking woman stood there holding a miserable little baby in her arms. Another tiny child, wasted and rickety, was clutching at her gown, partly supported on its feet by a ragged, hatless girl about eight years old, who looked up at Juliet with what she thought were the saddest eyes she had ever seen.
The woman, in a cringing, whining manner, explained that she had come to ask Miss Grant for a coal ticket.
"Are you very poor?" asked Juliet, feeling as she uttered the question how unnecessary it was.
"Poor, my dear lady! I assure you I've not broken my fast since yesterday. Just look at my gown; look at my boots. They'll tell you whether I'm poor. And as for the children, they're fairly starved, poor dears!"
Juliet glanced at the children, and their blue, pinched faces seemed to confirm the mother's words. The girl's heart was touched. She drew out her purse and opened it. She hesitated but for a moment as she turned over its contents, then held forth to the woman's astonished gaze a glittering gold piece.
"Take this," she said hurriedly; "there, don't say anything, but just take it. You must spend it wisely, you know," she added, as she saw the delighted gleam in the woman's eyes. "Buy food for yourself and the children—food and warm clothes."
"Yes, yes, to be sure, I'll spend it for the children, and God in heaven bless you for it, my dear young lady! They shall know what it is to have a good meal for once, poor dears!"
Juliet glanced again at the children. The eldest child looked startled, but no happier. Her eyes were, if possible, more sorrowful than before. Juliet thought that she could not understand what the money was to do for them. However, she would soon know, and Juliet hurried on her way, pursued by the woman's voluble thanks, and with the happy consciousness of having done a charitable deed.
Juliet had some shopping to do. In the street where the best shops of the suburb were, she encountered Flossie Chalcombe, who generally preferred to walk where there were shops, the windows of which she could scan.