Page:Eliot - Felix Holt, the Radical, vol. I, 1866.djvu/157

Rh when he was startled by hearing a low, sweet voice say, with a strong foreign accent,

"Have pity on me, sir."

Searching with his shortsighted eyes, he perceived some one on a side-bank; and approaching, he found a young woman with a baby on her lap. She spoke again, more faintly than before:

"Sir, I die with hunger; in the name of God take the little one."

There was no distrusting the pale face and the sweet low voice. Without pause, Mr Lyon took the baby in his arms and said, "Can you walk by my side, young woman?"

She rose, but seemed tottering. "Lean on me," said Mr Lyon. And so they walked slowly on, the minister for the first time in his life carrying a baby.

Nothing better occurred to him than to take his charge to his own house; it was the simplest way of relieving the woman's wants, and finding out how she could be helped further; and he thought of no other possibilities. She was too feeble for more words to be spoken between them till she was seated by his fireside. His elderly servant was not easily amazed at anything her master did in the way of charity, and at once