THE poverty-stricken aspect of the street when we entered it, thedirty and dilapidated condition of the house when we drew up atthe door, would have warned most men, in my position, to preparethemselves for a distressing discovery when they were admitted tothe interior of the dwelling. The first impression which theplace produced on _my_ mind suggested, on the contrary, that theboy's answers to my questions had led me astray. It was simplyimpossible to associate Mrs. Van Brandt (as _I_ remembered her)with the spectacle of such squalid poverty as I now beheld. Irang the door-bell, feeling persuaded beforehand that myinquiries would lead to no useful result.

As I lifted my hand to the bell, my little companion's dread of abeating revived in full force. He hid himself behind me; and whenI asked what he was about, he answered, confidentially: "Pleasestand between us, sir, when mother opens the door!"

A tall and truculent woman answered the bell. No introduction wasnecessary. Holding a cane in her hand, she stood self-proclaimedas my small friend's mother.

"I thought it was that vagabond of a boy of mine," she explained,as an apology for the exhibition of the cane. "He has been goneon an errand more than two hours. What did you please to want,sir?"

I interceded for the unfortunate boy before I entered on my ownbusiness.

"I must beg you to forgive your son this time," I said. "I foundhim lost in the streets; and I have brought him home."

The woman's astonishment when she heard what I had done, anddiscovered her son behind me, literally struck her dumb. Thelanguage of the eye, superseding on this occasion the language ofthe tongue, plainly revealed the impression that I had producedon her: "You bring my lost brat home in a cab! Mr. Stranger, youare mad."

"I hear that you have a lady named Brand lodging in the house," Iwent on. "I dare say I am mistaken in supposing her to be a ladyof the same name whom I know. But I should like to make surewhether I am right or wrong. Is it too late to disturb yourlodger to-night?"

The woman recovered the use of her tongue.

"My lodger is up and waiting for that little fool, who doesn'tknow his way about London yet!" She emphasized those words byshaking her brawny fist at her son--who instantly returned to hisplace of refuge behind the tail of my coat. "Have you got themoney?" inquired the terrible person, shouting at her hiddenoffspring over my shoulder. "Or have you lost _that_ as well asyour own stupid little self?"

The boy showed himself again, and put the money into his mother'sknotty hand. She counted it, with eyes which satisfied themselvesfiercely that each coin was of genuine silver--and then becamepartially pacified.

"Go along upstairs," she growled, addressing her son; "and don'tkeep the lady waiting any longer. They're half starved, she andher child," the woman proceeded, turning to me. "The food my boyhas got for them in his basket will be the first food the motherhas tasted today. She's pawned everything by this time; and whatshe's to do unless you help her is more than I can say. Thedoctor does what he can; but he told me today, if she wasn'tbetter nourished, it was no use sending for _him_. Follow theboy; and see for yourself if it's the lady you know."

I listened to the woman, still feeling persuaded that I had actedunder a delusion in going to her house. How was it possible toassociate the charming object of my heart's worship with themiserable story of destitution which I had just heard? I stoppedthe boy on the first landing, and told him to announce me simplyas a doctor, who had been informed of Mrs. Brand's illness, andwho had called to see her.

We ascended a second flight of stairs, and a third. Arrived nowat the top of the house, the boy knocked at the door that wasnearest to us on the landing. No audible voice replied. He openedthe door without ceremony, and went in. I waited outside to hearwhat was said. The door was left ajar. If the voice of "Mrs.Brand" was (as I believed it would prove to be) the voice of astranger, I resolved to offer her delicately such help as laywithin my power, and to return forthwith to my post under "theshadow of Saint Paul's."

The first voice that spoke to the boy was the voice of a child.

"I'm so hungry, Jemmy--I'm so hungry!"

"All right, missy--I've got you something to eat."

"Be quick, Jemmy! Be quick!"

There was a momentary pause; and then I heard the boy's voiceonce more.

"There's a slice of bread-and-butter, missy. You must wait foryour egg till I can boil it. Don't you eat too fast, or you'llchoke yourself. What's the matter with your mamma? Are youasleep, ma'am?"

I could bar ely hear the answering voice--it was so faint; and ituttered but one word: "No!"

The boy spoke again.

"Cheer up, missus. There's a doctor outside waiting to see you."

This time there was no audible reply. The boy showed himself tome at the door. "Please to come in, sir. _I_ can't make anythingof her."

It would have been misplaced delicacy to have hesitated anylonger to enter the room. I went in.

There, at the opposite end of a miserably furnished bed-chamber,lying back feebly in a tattered old arm-chair, was one more amongthe thousands of forlorn creatures, starving that night in thegreat city. A white handkerchief was laid over her face as if toscreen it from the flame of the fire hard by. She lifted thehandkerchief, startled by the sound of my footsteps as I enteredthe room. I looked at her, and saw in the white, wan, death-likeface the face of the woman I loved!

For a moment the horror of the discovery turned me faint andgiddy. In another instant I was kneeling by her chair. My arm wasround her--her head lay on my shoulder. She was past speaking,past crying out: she trembled silently, and that was all. I saidnothing. No words passed my lips, no tears came to my relief. Iheld her to me; and she let me hold her. The child, devouring itsbread-and-butter at a little round table, stared at us. The boy,on his knees before the grate, mending the fire, stared at us.And the slow minutes lagged on; and the buzzing of a fly in acorner was the only sound in the room.

The instincts of the profession to which I had been trained,rather than any active sense of the horror of the situation inwhich I was placed, roused me at last. She was starving! I saw itin the deadly color of her skin; I felt it in the faint, quickflutter of her pulse. I called the boy to me, and sent him to thenearest public-house for wine and biscuits. "Be quick about it,"I said; "and you shall have more money for yourself than ever youhad in your life!" The boy looked at me, spit on the coins in hishand, said, "That's for luck!" and ran out of the room as neverboy ran yet.

I turned to speak my first words of comfort to the mother. Thecry of the child stopped me.

"I'm so hungry! I'm so hungry!"

I set more food before the famished child and kissed her. Shelooked up at me with wondering eyes.

"Are you a new papa?" the little creature asked. "My other papanever kisses me."

I looked at the mother. Her eyes were closed; the tears flowedslowly over her worn, white cheeks. I took her frail hand inmine. "Happier days are coming," I said; "you are _my_ care now."There was no answer. She still trembled silently, and that wasall.

In less than five minutes the boy returned, and earned hispromised reward. He sat on the floor by the fire counting histreasure, the one happy creature in the room. I soaked somecrumbled morsels of biscuit in the wine, and, little by little, Irevived her failing strength by nourishment administered atintervals in that cautious form. After a while she raised herhead, and looked at me with wondering eyes that were pitiablylike the eyes of her child. A faint, delicate flush began to showitself in her face. She spoke to me, for the first time, inwhispering tones that I could just hear as I sat close at herside.

"How did you find me? Who showed you the way to this place?"

She paused; painfully recalling the memory of something that wasslow to come back. Her color deepened; she found the lostremembrance, and looked at me with a timid curiosity. "Whatbrought you here?" she asked. "Was it my dream?"

"Wait, dearest, till you are stronger, and I will tell you all."

I lifted her gently, and laid her on the wretched bed. The childfollowed us, and climbing to the bedstead with my help, nestledat her mother's side. I sent the boy away to tell the mistress ofthe house that I should remain with my patient, watching herprogress toward recovery, through the night. He went out,jingling his money joyfully in his pocket. We three were lefttogether.

As the long hours followed each other, she fell at intervals intoa broken sleep; waking with a start, and looking at me wildly asif I had been a stranger at her bedside. Toward morning thenourishment which I still carefully administered wrought itshealthful change in her pulse, and composed her to quieterslumbers. When the sun rose she was sleeping as peacefully as thechild at her side. I was able to leave her, until my return laterin the day, under the care of the woman of the house. The magicof money transformed this termagant and terrible person into adocile and attentive nurse--so eager to follow my instructionsexactly that she begged me to commit them to writing before Iwent away. For a moment I still lingered alone at the bedside ofthe sleeping woman, and satisfied myself for the hundredth timethat her life was safe, before I left her. It was the sweetest ofall rewards to feel sure of this--to touch her cool foreheadlightly with my lips--to look, and look again, at the poor wornface, always dear, always beautiful, to _my_ eyes. change as itmight. I closed the door softly and went out in the brightmorning, a happy man again. So close together rise the springs ofjoy and sorrow in human life! So near in our heart, as in ourheaven, is the brightest sunshine to the blackest cloud!