“ Then, having thus performed his duty, he mounted the box beside his friend the coachman, and the equipage rattled quickly away, its gleaming lights soon lost in the smoke-laden vapours that drooped downward like funeral hangings from the invisible sky to the scarcely visible ground. Left to herself, the woman who had vainly sought charity from those in whom no charity existed, looked up despairingly, as one distraught, and seemed as though she would have given vent to some fierce exclamation, when a feeble wail came pitifully forth from the sheltering folds of her shawl. ”

“ As if her words had been a powerful incantation to summon forth an evil spirit, a door in one of the miserable houses was thrown open, and a stout woman, nearly naked to the waist, with a swollen, blotched, and most hideous countenance, rushed out furiously, and darting at Liz, shook her violently by the arm.
“Where’s my shullin’?” she yelled, “where’s my gin? Out with it! Out with my shullin’ an’ fourpence! None of yer sneakin’ ways with me; a bargain’s a bargain all the world over! Yer’re making a fortin’ with my babby—yer know y’ are; pays yer a good deal better than yer old trade! ”

“ It is not correct taste to know the name of a club waiter, so I must apologise for knowing William’s, and still more for not forgetting it. If, again, to speak of a waiter is bad form, to speak bitterly is the comic degree of it. But William has disappointed me sorely. There were years when I would defer dining several minutes that he might wait on me. His pains to reserve the window-seat for me were perfectly satisfactory. I allowed him privileges, as to suggest dishes, and would give him information, as that some one had startled me in the reading-room by slamming a door. ”

“ 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 toward 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. ”

“ Leibel!” cried Eliphaz, outraged.
“Sh!” said Sugarman, “or he will overhear your delight, and ask more. He has his nose high enough, as it is.”
“B—b—b—ut,” sputtered the bewildered parent, “I know Leibel myself. I see him every day. I don’t want a Shadchan to find me a man I know—a mere hand in my own workshop!”
“Your talk has neither face nor figure,” answered Sugarman, sternly. “It is just the people one sees every day that one knows least. I warrant that if I had not put it into your head you would never have dreamt of Leibel as a son-in-law. ”

“ Liz grew uneasy, but she had no one in whom to confide her fears. She had been very regular in her payments to Mother Mawks, and that irate lady, kept in order by her bull-dog of a husband, had been of late very contented to let her have the child without further interference. Liz knew well enough that no one in the miserable alley where she dwelt would care whether the baby were ill or not. They would tell her, “The more sickly the better for your trade.” Besides, she was jealous; she could not endure the idea of any one tending it or touching it but herself. ”

“ So saying, she rearranged her shawl in closer and tighter folds, so as to protect the child more thoroughly. While she was engaged in this operation a lady in deep mourning passed close by her, and, advancing to the very steps of the altar, knelt down, hiding her face with her clasped hands. The tired wayfarer’s attention was attracted by this; she gazed with a sort of dull wonder at the kneeling figure robed in rich rustling silk and crape, and gradually her eyes wandered upward, upward, till they rested on the gravely sweet and serenely smiling marble image of the Virgin and Child. ”

“ Oh, baby, baby!”
And she broke into a tempestuous passion of sobs and tears. The bystanders looked on in unmoved silence. Mother Mawks gathered her torn garments round her with a gesture of defiance, and sniffed the air as though she said, “Any one who wants to meddle with me will get the worst of it.” There was a brief pause; suddenly a man staggered out of the gin-shop, smearing the back of his hand across his mouth as he came—a massively built, ill-favoured brute, with a shock of uncombed red hair and small ferret-like eyes. ”

“ THE HIRED BABY, By Marie Corelli
A dark, desolate December night, a night that clung to the metropolis like a wet black shroud, a night in which the heavy, low-hanging vapours melted every now and then into a slow, reluctant rain, cold as icicle-drops in a rock cavern. People passed and repassed in the streets like ghosts in a bad dream; the twinkling gas-light showed them at one moment rising out of the fog, and then disappearing from view as though suddenly engulfed in a vaporous ebon sea. ”

“ He was blubbering, as if a change of waiters, was a matter of importance.
“This is very bad, William,” I said. “I fear I can do nothing for you.”
“Have mercy on a distracted man!” he entreated. “I’ll go on my knees to Mr. Myddleton Finch.”
How could I but despise a fellow who would be thus abject for a pound a week?
“I dare not tell her,” he continued, “that I have lost my place. She would just fall back and die.”
“I forbade your speaking of your wife,” I said, sharply, “unless you can speak pleasantly of her.”
“But she may be worse now, sir, and I cannot even see Jenny from here. ”

“ Leibel shook his head. “Only her hump” he said with a flash of humour.
“Moses Mendelssohn had a hump,” expostulated Sugarman, reproachfully.
“Yes, but he was a heretic,” rejoined Leibel, who was not without reading. “And then he was a man! A man with two humps could find a wife for each. But a woman with a hump cannot expect a husband in addition.”
“Guard your tongue from evil,” quoth the Shadchan, angrily. “If everybody were to talk like you Leah Volcovitch would never be married at all.” ”

“ Nevertheless Leibel persisted in his unreasonable attitude. He accused Sugarman of wasting his time, of making a fool of him.
“A fool of you!” echoed the Shadchan, indignantly, “when I give you a chance of a boot and shoe manufacturer’s daughter? You will make a fool of yourself if you refuse. I dare say her dowry would be enough to set you up as a master tailor. At present you are compelled to slave away as a cutter for thirty shillings a week. It is most unjust. If you only had a few machines you would be able to employ your own cutters. And they can be got so cheap nowadays.” ”

“ You will find that all these studies will serve to ennoble your art, and you will be able to put mind into your work, and not merely form and colour. Do you know, I feel so well that I believe I shall not only live to finish Andrea del Sarto, but also to smoke another pipe?”
“You have been too rash to-day,” she laughed, “giving away your pipe and pouch, your palette and brushes, in this reckless manner! I must get you a new pipe to-morrow. I wonder you did not part with your venerable Lucretius.” ”

“ I tell you, humanity and nature have so much in common with each other that if you lose part of your pleasure in the latter; you will see less beauty in the trees, the flowers, and the fields, less grandeur in the mighty mountains and the sea. The seasons will come and go, and you will scarcely heed their coming and going: winter will settle over your soul, just as it settled over mine. And you see what I am.”
They had now passed into the cloisters, and they sat down in one of the recesses of the windows, and looked out upon the rich plot of grass which the cloisters enclose. ”

“ At one house in particular—a house with gaudy glass doors and somewhat spoiled yellow silk curtains at the windows, a house that plainly said to itself, “Done up for show!” to all who cared to examine its exterior—there stood a closed brougham, drawn by a prancing pair of fat horses. A coachman of distinguished appearance sat on the box; a footman of irreproachable figure stood waiting on the pavement, his yellow-gloved hand resting elegantly on the polished silver knob of the carriage door. ”

“ The graceful arches, the sun shining through the stained windows, the vaulted roof, the noble columns, have helped me to understand the mystery which all our books of philosophy cannot make clear, though we bend over them year after year, and grow old over them, old in age and in spirit. Though I myself have never been outwardly a worshipper, I have never sat in a place of worship but that, for the time being, I have felt a better man. ”

“ Eliphaz shook his head on principle.
“Yes, you will,” said Sugarman, “when you learn how fine a man he is.”
The flush of confusion and trepidation already on Leibel’s countenance became a rosy glow of modesty, for he could not help overhearing what was being said, owing to the lull of the master tailor’s machine.
“Tell me, then,” rejoined Eliphaz.
“Tell me, first, if you will give fifty to a young, healthy, hard-working, God-fearing man, whose idea it is to start as a master tailor on his own account? ”

“ I never before saw a family so stricken down by a domestic misfortune as the group I found in the drawing-room, making a dejected pretence of reading or working. We talked at first—and hollow talk it was—on indifferent subjects, till I could bear it no longer, and plunged boldly into danger. ”

“ By-and-bye 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. ”

“ In the evening Rose extracted from her father the motive of Sugarman’s visit, and confessed that the idea was to her liking.
“But dost thou think he will have me, little father?” she asked, with cajoling eyes.
“Any one would have my Rose.”
“Ah, but Leibel is different. So many years he has sat at my side and said nothing.”
“He had his work to think of. He is a good, saving youth.”
“At this very moment Sugarman is trying to persuade him—not so? I suppose he will want much money.” ”