When they returned home from shopping, they shivered with the cold and ran to the register. Then papa came home, and they had the happiest Christmas eve imaginable. Of course one cannot make one's charities go all around the world, but Mrs. Linley thought she had stretched hers a long distance. So she had. And yet she might have given the child at her door a few pennies. But street-beggars were so often thieves!
Meanwhile the little beggar girl wandered on. For nearly a week she had slept in the station-house and begged a little during the day, just enough to keep body and soul together. She used to sell matches and pins, but she had no capital to buy a new stock, and there were so many in the trade. A month ago the old woman with whom she had lived died suddenly. Then she had to live the best she could.
She went on asking now and then for a penny. Some gave the forlorn little beggar a scowl, some did not even deign to look, and one or two men spoke roughly to her. Oh! She was so hungry and so cold.
The bright sunshine did not seem to warm her a bit. She looked wistfully into basement windows. She stared at the merry, happy children who ran by in warm clothing. Her shoes were out to the ground; her tatters flapped in the biting wind.
It was growing colder and colder. She ran along until she came to a restaurant. Such a delightful, savory smell came through the grating, and a faint warmth that was most grateful to her. Not a mouthful of anything had she eaten since yesterday noon. People went along with great market baskets full; men with bundles in their arms, girls and boys with Christmas gifts,—all hurrying homeward.
"Move on, move on, there!" said the stern voice of a policeman.
What if she was arrested and sent to prison? She would have something to eat. And the pain gnawing at her stomach was so hard to bear. There was a jacket she might steal—the men around would be sure to see her. She reached out her hand.
No, she couldn't. She never had been a thief. She remembered her mother, who had died two years ago. The pretty lady getting into the carriage had made her think of her! Oh! how good it was that the dear mother could never be hungry again. And she had said, "Jennie, never tell a lie, never steal."