“‘This won’t do, my girl,’ said I. I never could be harsh with ’em, poor things!  She laid it back and looked up at me with a miserable sort of a smile, that made me put my hand in my pocket to fish for a ninepence before she spoke.

“‘I know it won’t,’ she says.  ’I didn’t want to do it, it’s so mean, but I’m awful hungry, sir.’

“‘Better run home and get your supper then.’

“‘I’ve got no home.’

“‘Where do you live?’

“‘In the street.’

“‘Where do you sleep?’

“’Anywhere; last night in the lock-up, and I thought I’d get in there again, if I did that when you saw me.  I like to go there, it’s warm and safe.’

“‘If I don’t take you there, what will you do?’

“’Don’t know.  I want to go over there and dance again, as I used to; but being sick has made me ugly, so they won’t have me, and no one else will take me because I have been there once.’

“I looked where she pointed, and thanked the Lord that they wouldn’t take her.  It was one of those low theatres that do so much damage to the like of her; there was a gambling den one side of it, an eating saloon the other, and at the door of it lounged a scamp I knew very well, looking like a big spider watching for a fly.  I longed to fling my billy at him; but as I couldn’t, I held on to the girl.  I was new to the thing then, but though I’d heard about hunger and homelessness often enough, I’d never had this sort of thing, nor seen that look on a girl’s face.  A white, pinched face hers was, with frighted, tired-looking eyes, but so innocent; she wasn’t more than sixteen, had been pretty once I saw, looked sick and starved now, and seemed just the most helpless, hopeless little thing that ever was.

“’You’d better come to the Station for to-night, and we’ll see to you to-morrow,’ says I.

“‘Thank you, sir,’ says she, looking as grateful as if I’d asked her home.  I suppose I did speaks kind of fatherly.  I ain’t ashamed to say I felt so, seeing what a child she was; nor to own that when she put her little hand in mine, it hurt me to feel how thin and cold it was.  We passed the eating-house where the red lights made her face as rosy as it ought to have been; there was meat and pies in the window, and the poor thing stopped to look.  It was too much for her; off came her shawl, and she said in that coaxing way of hers,—­

“’I wish you’d let me stop at the place close by and sell this; they’ll give a little for it, and I’ll get some supper.  I’ve had nothing since yesterday morning, and maybe cold is easier to bear than hunger.’

“’Have you nothing better than that to sell?” I says, not quite sure that she wasn’t all a humbug, like so many of ’em.  She seemed to see that, and looked up at me again with such innocent eyes, I couldn’t doubt her when she said, shivering with something beside the cold,—­

“‘Nothing but myself.’  Then the tears came, and she laid her head down on my arm, sobbing,—­’Keep me! oh, do keep me safe somewhere!’”