“Lord have mercy on yez!” she said in a hoarse voice which sounded almost terrified.  “Who are yez, an’ what bees ye dow’ in a place the loike o’ this?”

“I came,” said Elizabeth, “to see those who are poor.  I wish to help them.  I have great sorrow for them.  It is right that the rich should help those who want.  Tell me why you cry, and why your little children sit in the cold.”  Everybody had shown surprise to whom Elizabeth had spoken to-night, but no one had stared as this woman did.

“It’s no place for the loike o’ yez,” she said.  “An’ it black noight, an’ men and women wild in the drink; an’ Pat Harrigan insoide bloind an’ mad in liquor, an’ it’s turned me an’ the children out he has to shlape in the snow—­an’ not the furst toime either.  An’ it’s starvin’ we are—­starvin’ an’ no other,” and she dropped her wretched head on her knees and began to moan again, and the children joined her.

[ILLUSTRATION:  “WHY IS IT THAT YOU CRY?” SHE ASKED GENTLY.]

“Don’t let yez daddy hear yez,” she said to them.  “Whisht now—­it’s come out an’ kill yez he will.”

Elizabeth began to feel tremulous and faint.

“Is it that they have hunger?” she asked.

“Not a bite or sup have they had this day, nor yesterday,” was the answer, “The good Saints have pity on us.”

“Yes,” said Elizabeth, “the good Saints have always pity.  I will go and get some food—­poor little ones.”

She had seen a shop only a few yards away—­she remembered passing it.  Before the woman could speak again she was gone.

“Yes,” she said, “I was sent to them—­it is the answer to my prayer—­it was not in vain that I asked so long.”

When she entered the shop the few people who were in it stopped what they were doing to stare at her as others had done—­but she scarcely saw that it was so.

“Give to me a basket,” she said to the owner of the place.  “Put in it some bread and wine—­some of the things which are ready to eat.  It is for a poor woman and her little ones who starve.”

There was in the shop among others a red-faced woman with a cunning look in her eyes.  She sidled out of the place and was waiting for Elizabeth when she came out.

“I’m starvin’ too, little lady,” she said.  “There’s many of us that way, an’ it’s not often them with money care about it.  Give me something too,” in a wheedling voice.

Elizabeth looked up at her, her pure ignorant eyes full of pity.

“I have great sorrows for you,” she said.  “Perhaps the poor woman will share her food with you.”

“It’s the money I need,” said the woman.

“I have none left,” answered Elizabeth.  “I will come again.”

“It’s now I want it,” the woman persisted.  Then she looked covetously at Elizabeth’s velvet fur-lined and trimmed cloak.  “That’s a pretty cloak you’ve on,” she said.  “You’ve got another, I daresay.”

Suddenly she gave the cloak a pull, but the fastening did not give way as she had thought it would.