A few days later Mrs. Annie Smith, her honest face beaming with joy, arrived again at the workhouse, followed by a small servant with a big bundle. The attiring of the infant was long and careful, and many came to help, and then Daphne Daventry was whirled away in a flutter of purple and fine linen, and the burden of the rates was lightened.
"MARY, MARY, PITY WOMEN!"
A woman sat alone with folded hands in a dark fireless room. There was little or no furniture to hold the dust, and one could see that the pitiful process known as "putting away" had been going on, for the cleanly scrubbed boards and polished grate showed the good housewife's struggle after decency. On a small table in the centre of the room stood half a loaf of bread, a jug of water, and a cup of milk. The woman bore traces of good looks, but her face was grey and pinched with hunger, and in her eyes was a smouldering fire of resentment and despair.
Presently the silence and gloom was broken by the entrance of a troop of children returning noisily from school. Their faces fell when they saw the scanty meal, and the youngest, a child of four or five, threw himself sobbing into his mother's arms: "Oh, mother, I'se so hungry; we only had that bit of bread for dinner."
"Hush, dear! There is a little milk for you and Gladys; you can drink as far as the blue pattern, and the rest is for her."
The mother kissed him and tried to dry his tears; but it is hard to hear one's children crying for food; and presently her fortitude gave way, and she began to sob too. The older children, frightened at her breakdown, clung round her, weeping; and the room echoed like a torture-chamber with sobs and wails.
Presently a knock sounded at the door, and a stout, motherly woman entered. "Good evening, Mrs. Blake; I've just looked in to know if you'd bring the children to have a cup of tea with me. I'm all alone, and I like a bit of company. H'albert is always the boy for my money. I just opened a pot of my home-made plum jam on purpose for him. There, my dear, have your cry out, and never mind me! Things have gone badly with you, I know, and nothing clears the system so well as a good cry; you feel a sight better after, and able to face the world fair and square. Now, kiddies, leave mother to herself for a bit and come and help me set the tea things. Let's see, we shall be seven all told; so, Lily, will you run upstairs to Mrs. Johnson—my compliments, and will she oblige with a cup and saucer, as we are such a big party."
The landlady's kitchen was warmed with a big fire, and hermetically sealed against draughts; a big bed took up the greater part of the room, and this formed a luxurious divan for the four children, to whom the hot tea and toast, the tinned lobster, and the home-made jam were nectar and ambrosia. Mrs. Blake had the place of honour by the fire, and when the meal was over the children were advised to run out for a game in the street, and Mrs. Wells, turning her chair round to the cheerful blaze, said soothingly—