“Poor soul!” said one of the men, almost tenderly. “She’s near dead with cold and hunger.”
She could not walk. Kind though rough hands carried her to the station house, where a warm fire and a few spoonfuls of broth—hastily procured from a restaurant—brought her wholly back to life, and she sat up in her chair and faced a row of pitying faces with all her young misery.
Little by little her story was drawn from her.
But what to do with her—that was the question. She was not an offender against the law, and this institution was not for the protection of misfortune, but for the punishment of crime. They did the best they could. They fed her, made her a comfortable bed on a bench in the station house, and the next morning the whole story went into the papers.
This story was read by a lady of wealth over her morning coffee. She had lately been reading an account of the poor in our large cities, and had begun to think it was her duty to do something to help. With more money than she could use, and not a relative in the world, there was no reason why she should not make at least one child happy, and educate it for a useful life.
On reading the story of Nora, with the added statement that her father had been arrested and placed in a retreat where he would not soon get out, the thought struck her that here was her chance to make the experiment.
After her breakfast, Miss Barnes ordered her carriage and went out. After driving about a little, she ordered her coachman to drive to the B—— Street police station. He looked astonished, but of course obeyed, and in a short time, the dingy station house received an unusual visitor.
The moment Miss Barnes entered the room, she saw the child, and knew she was the one she had come to see. As for Nora, she had never seen a beautiful, happy-looking woman, and she could not take her eyes off her face.
Miss Barnes asked a few questions. Who was going to take her? Who were her friends? She learned that she had none, that her father had been arrested for vagrancy, and would be sent to the bridewell.
“Where is the child to go?” at last she asked.