Page:Anna Katharine Green - Leavenworth Case.djvu/275

Rh fall some word that might serve as a guide to my further enlightenment; I therefore turned, with the intention of asking her some question, when my attention was attracted by the figure of a woman coming out of the back-door of the neighboring house, who, for general dilapidation and uncouthness of bearing, was a perfect type of the style of tramp of whom we had been talking at the supper table. Gnawing a crust which she threw away as she reached the street, she trudged down the path, her scanty dress, piteous in its rags and soil, flapping in the keen spring wind, and revealing ragged shoes red with the mud of the highway.

“There is a customer that may interest you," said I.

Mrs. Belden seemed to awake from a trance. Rising slowly, she looked out, and with a rapidly softening gaze surveyed the forlorn creature before her.

“Poor thing!" she muttered; “but I cannot do much for her to-night. A good supper is all I can give her."

And, going to the front door, she bade her step round the house to the kitchen, where, in another moment, I heard the rough creature’s voice rise in one long “Bless you!" that could only have been produced by the setting before her of the good things with which Mrs. Belden’s larder seemed teeming.

But supper was not all she wanted. After a decent length of time, employed as I should judge in mastication, I heard her voice rise once more in a plea for shelter.

“The barn, ma’am, or the wood-house. Any place where I can lie out of the wind." And she commenced a long tale of want and disease, so piteous to hear that I was not at all surprised when Mrs. Belden told me,