“Oh, I’m bad enough—­bad as most girls of my age,” said the innocent girl recklessly, “but I’m not bad enough to keep back a penny if I knew any one was hungry.  Stop looking at me and buy what you like, or else let me do it.  Take home some of this jelly-cake to your mother.  That would tempt my appetite if it ever needed any tempting.  I half believe you are shamming all this, you act so queer.”

“Come with me,” said the girl, for the people in the store were looking at them curiously.  When in the street she continued, “You are not bad.  What is your name?”

“Belle Jocelyn.”

“My name is Clara Bute.  I am hungry.  I’m faint for food, but may it choke me if I eat any before I take something home to mother!  Cake is not what either of us need, although it made me ravenous to see it.  You haven’t much money here, Belle, and small as the sum is, I don’t know when I can repay it.”

“Oh, stop that kind of talk,” cried Belle; “you’ll drive me wild.  Let us get what your mother does want and take it to her without another word.”

They purchased bread and milk, a little tea, a bit of beef, a bundle of kindling-wood, and then Belle’s slender funds gave out.  With these they turned into a side street and soon reached a tall tenement.

“Oh,” sighed Clara, “how can I climb those dreadful stairs!  We live at the top.”

“Drink some of the milk,” said Belle kindly, “and then let me carry everything.”

“I guess I’ll have to or I’ll never get up at all.”  Slowly and painfully she mounted flight after flight, sitting down at last and resting after each ascent.  “I didn’t—­realize—­I was so weak,” she panted.

“Tell me your room,” said Belle, “and I’ll come back and help you.”

“It’s the—­last one—­back—­top floor.  I’ve given out.”

Belle left her sitting on the stairs and soon reached the door, which had been left slightly ajar for air, for the evening was sultry.  She pushed it open with her foot, since her hands were so full, and with her eyes fixed on the articles she was carrying so as to drop nothing, she crossed the small room to a table and put them down before looking around.

“There’s some—­mistake,” said a very low, hollow voice.

Belle was almost transfixed by eyes as black as her own, gleaming out of cavernous sockets and from the most emaciated face she had ever seen.  It seemed as if the dead were speaking to her.  At any rate, if the woman were not dead she soon would be, and the thought flashed through Belle’s mind that she would be the cause of her death, since she had taken her daughter’s place and robbed them of sustenance.  She who had been ready to face a whole shopful of hostile people with undaunted eyes was seized with a remorseful panic, and ran sobbing down to Clara, crying, “Oh, do come—­let me carry you”; and this she half did in her excitement.  “Give your mother something to make her better right away.  Let me help you—­tell me what to do.”