“Just as much as he would take.”

“I don’t believe it.  He’s been frettin’ and chawin’ at the strings of his hood all the afternoon, when he ought to have been asleep, and he’s looking punier every day.  I believe you’re giving him only bread and water.”

But Mother Hewitt protested that she gave him the best of new milk, and as much as he would take.

“Well, here’s a quarter,” said the woman, handing Mother Hewitt some money; “and see that he is well fed to-night and to-morrow morning.  He’s getting ’most too deathly in his face.  The people won’t stand it if they think a baby’s going to die—­the women ’specially, and most of all the young things that have lost babies.  One of these—­I know ’em by the way they look out of their eyes—­came twice to-day and stood over him sad and sorrowful like; she didn’t give me anything.  I’ve seen her before.  Maybe she’s his mother.  As like as nor, for nobody knows where he came from.  Wasn’t Sally Long’s baby; always thought she’d stole him from somebody.  Now, mind, he’s to have good milk every day, or I’ll change his boarding-house.  D’ye hear!”

And laughing at this sally, the woman turned away to spend in a night’s debauch the money she had gained in half a day’s begging.

Left to herself, Mother Hewitt went staggering back with the baby in her arms, and seated herself on the ground beside the cup of bread and water, which was mixed to the consistence of cream.  As she did so the light of her poor candle fell on the baby’s face.  It was pinched and hungry and ashen pale, the thin lips wrought by want and suffering into such sad expressions of pain that none but the most stupid and hardened could look at them and keep back a gush of tears.

But Mother Hewitt saw nothing of this—­felt nothing of this.  Pity and tenderness had long since died out of her heart.  As she laid the baby back on one arm she took a spoonful of the mixture prepared for its supper, and pushed it roughly into its mouth.  The baby swallowed it with a kind of starving eagerness, but with no sign of satisfaction on its sorrowful little face.  But Mother Hewitt was too impatient to get through with her work of feeding the child, and thrust in spoonful after spoonful until it choked, when she shook it angrily, calling it vile names.

The baby cried feebly at this. when she shook it again and slapped it with her heavy hand.  Then it grew still.  She put the spoon again to its lips, but it shut them tightly and turned its head away.

“Very well,” said Mother Hewitt.  “If you won’t, you won’t;” and she tossed the helpless thing as she would have tossed a senseless bundle over upon the heap of straw that served as a bed, adding, as she did so, “I never coaxed my own brats.”

The baby did not cry.  Mother Hewitt then blew out the candle, and groping her way to the door of the cellar that opened on the street, went out, shutting down the heavy door behind her, and leaving the child alone in that dark and noisome den—­alone in its foul and wet garments, but, thanks to kindly drugs, only partially conscious of its misery.