gin-shop, and very soon the alley was comparatively quiet and deserted. By-and-by she heard her name called in a low voice: "Liz! Liz!"

She looked down and saw the old man who had promised her his protection in case Mother Mawks should persecute her. "Is that you, Jim? Come upstairs, it's better than talking out there." He obeyed, and stood before her in the wretched room, looking curiously both at her and the baby. A wiry, wolfish-faced being was Jim Duds, as he was familiarly called, though his own name was the aristocratic and singularly inappropriate one of James Douglas; he was more like an animal than a human creature, with his straggling grey hair, bushy beard, and sharp teeth protruding like fangs from beneath his upper lip. His profession was that of an area-thief, and he considered it a sufficiently respectable calling.

"Mother Mawks has got it this time," he said with a grin which was more like a snarl. "Joe's blood was up an' he pounded her nigh into a jelly. She'll leave ye quiet now; so long as ye pay the hire reg'lar ye'll have Joe on yer side. If so be as there's a bad day, ye'd better not come home at all."

"I know," said Liz, "but she's always had the money for the child, and surely it wasn't much to ask her to let me keep it warm on such a cold night as this."

Jim Duds looked meditative. "Wot makes ye

care for that babby so much?" he asked.

yourn."

Liz sighed.

""Tain't

"No!" she said sadly. "That's true. But it seems something to hold on to like. See what my life has been!" She stopped and a wave of colour flushed her pallid features. "From a little girl, nothing but the streets-the long cruel streets! and I just a bit of dirt on the pavement--no more; flung here, flung there, and at last swept into the gutter. All dark-all useless!" She laughed a little. "Fancy, Jim! I've never seen the country!"

"Nor I," said Jim, biting a piece of straw reflectively. "It must be powerful fine, with nought but green trees an' posies a' blowin' an' a' growin' everywheres. There ain't many kitching areas there though, I'm told."

Liz went on, scarcely heeding him: "The baby seems to me like what the country must be--all harmless and sweet and quiet; when I hold it so, my heart gets peaceful somehow, I don't know why."

Again Jim looked speculative. He waved his bitten. straw expressively.

"Ye've had 'sperience, Liz. Haint ye met no man like, wot ye could care fur?"

Liz trembled and her eyes grew wild.

"Men!" she cried with bitterest scorn

have come my way, only brutes!"

-"no men

Jim stared, but was silent; he had no fit answer ready. Presently Liz spoke again more softly:

"Jim, do you know I went into a great church today?"

"Worse luck!" said Jim sententiously. "Church ain't no use nohow as fur as I can see."

"There was a figure there, Jim," went on Liz, earnestly, "of a Woman holding up a Baby, and people knelt down before it. What do you s'pose it was?"

"Can't say!" replied the puzzled Jim. "Are ye sure 'twas a church? Most like 'twas a moo'seum." "No, no!" said Liz. ""Twas a church for certain; there were folks praying in it."

"Ah well!" growled Jim, gruffly, "much good may it do 'em! I'm not of the prayin' sort. A woman an' a babby, did ye say? Don't ye get such cranky notions into yer head, Liz! Women an' babbies are common enough-too common by a long chalk, an' as for prayin' to 'em-" Jim's utter contempt and incredulity were too great for further expression, and he turned away, wishing her a curt "Good-night!"

"Good-night!" said Liz softly, and long after he had left her she still sat silent, thinking, thinking, with the baby asleep in her arms, listening to the rain as it dripped, dripped, heavily, like clods falling on a coffin-lid. She was not a good woman-far from it. Her very motive in hiring the infant at so much a day was entirely in

excusable-it was simply to gain money upon false pretences, by exciting more pity than would otherwise have been bestowed on her had she begged for herself alone, without a child in her arms. At first she had carried the baby about to serve as a mere trick of her trade, but the warm feel of its little helpless body against her bosom day after day had softened her heart towards its innocence and pitiful weakness, and at last she had grown to love it with a strange, intense passion,

-so much that she would willingly have sacrificed her life for its sake. She knew that its own parents cared nothing for it, except for the money it brought them through her hands, and often wild plans would form themselves in her poor tired brain,-plans of running away with it altogether from the roaring, devouring city, to some sweet humble country village, there to obtain work, and devote herself to making this one little child happy. Poor Liz! Poor, bewildered, heart-broken Liz! Ignorant London heathen as she was, there was one fragrant flower blossoming in the desert of her soiled and wasted existence-the flower of a pure and guileless love for one of those "little ones" of whom it hath been said by an All-Pitying Divinity unknown to her: "Suffer them to come unto Me and forbid them not, for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven."

The dreary winter days crept on apace, and as they drew near Christmas, dwellers in the streets leading off

the Strand grew accustomed of nights to hear the plaintive voice of a woman, singing in a peculiarly thrilling and pathetic manner some of the old songs and ballads familiar and dear to the heart of every Englishman."The Banks of Allan Water," "The Bailiff's Daughter", "Sally in our Alley," "The Last Rose of Summer;" all these well loved ditties she sang one after the other, and though her notes were neither fresh nor powerful, they were true and often tender, more particularly in the hackneyed but still captivating melody of "Home, sweet Home." Windows were opened, and pennies freely showered on the street vocalist, who was accompanied in all her wanderings by a fragile infant, which she seemed to carry with especial care and tenderness. Sometimes, too, in the bleak afternoons, she would be seen wending her way through mud and mire, setting her weary face against the bitter east wind, and patiently singing on, and motherly women coming from the gay shops and stores where they had been purchasing Christmas toys for their own children would often stop to look at the baby's pinched white features with pity, and would say, while giving their spare pennies, "Poor little thing! Is it not very ill?" while Liz, her heart freezing with sudden terror, would exclaim hurriedly, "Oh, no, no! It is always pale; it is just a little bit weak, that's all!" and the kindly questioners, touched by the large despair of her dark eyes, would pass on