“No, miss; and father’s dying, and mother nearly stupid with the cold, and we haven’t had anything to eat to-day.”
“Oh!” gasped Editha, horrified.
“I thought, miss, if I could only beg a dime of some one,” the girl went on, encouraged by her sympathy, “I could buy a few coals and make father a little gruel—there is a handful of meal left.”
Her pitying heart prompted her to go at once to ascertain and relieve the necessities of these wretched people; but she knew it was not always safe for a lady to enter those poverty-stricken abodes alone, and particularly so late in the day.
She was not sure either that the girl was telling her the truth, though she undoubtedly was an object of charity, and should not be left to suffer in her thin clothing—and there was no mistaking the look of hunger in her wan face.
Looking up, she espied a policeman not far distant. She beckoned him, and he immediately responded to her summons.
“Do you know much about the people in this street?” she asked.
“Yes, miss; I know that they’re a miserable set, mostly,” he returned, politely touching his hat.
“Miserable?—how?”
“Why, so poor they can hardly keep soul and body together, while some of them are desperate and vicious.”