It was a poor miserable specimen. At first she was not quite sure whether it were boy or girl.
Whimpering and mopping its nose with a very dirty hand, the child begged money for a sick mother—a dying mother—and begged as if not accustomed to it—all the time with an eye for that dread of New England beggars, the man in the blue coat and brass buttons.
Miss Moreland was so consciously irritated with life that she was unusually gentle. She stooped down. The child did not seem six years old. The face was not so very cunning. It was not ugly, either. It was merely the epitome of all that Miss Moreland tried to forget—the little one born without a chance in the world.
With a full appreciation of the child's fear of the police,—begging is a crime in many American towns—she carefully questioned her, watching for the dreaded officer herself.
It was the old story—a dying mother—no father—no one to do anything—a child sent out to cunningly defy the law, but it seemed to be only for bread.
Obviously the thing to do was to deliver the child up to the police. It would be at once properly cared for, and the mother also.
But Miss Moreland knew too much of official charity to be guilty of that.
The easiest thing was to give her money. But, unluckily, she belonged to a society pledged not to give alms in the streets, and her sense of the power of a moral obligation was a strong notion of duty, which had descended to her from her Puritan ancestors. There was one thing left to do.
"Do you know Chardon Street?" she asked.
The child nodded.