[ILLUSTRATION: "WHY IS IT THAT YOU CRY?" SHE ASKED GENTLY.]
"Don't let yez daddy hear yez," she said to them. "Whisht now—it's come out an' kill yez he will."
Elizabeth began to feel tremulous and faint.
"Is it that they have hunger?" she asked.
"Not a bite or sup have they had this day, nor yesterday," was the answer, "The good Saints have pity on us."
"Yes," said Elizabeth, "the good Saints have always pity. I will go and get some food—poor little ones."
She had seen a shop only a few yards away—she remembered passing it.
Before the woman could speak again she was gone.
"Yes," she said, "I was sent to them—it is the answer to my prayer—it was not in vain that I asked so long."
When she entered the shop the few people who were in it stopped what they were doing to stare at her as others had done—but she scarcely saw that it was so.
"Give to me a basket," she said to the owner of the place. "Put in it some bread and wine—some of the things which are ready to eat. It is for a poor woman and her little ones who starve."