Page:Elizabeth Jordan--Tales of the city room.djvu/171

 victim of cold and starvation in the Jersey hills. She seemed to have had no acquaintances in the village. The little children knew her, and many of them had home-made playthings which she had given them. Their parents had noticed the tall, gaunt figure passing through the village streets, and several of them recalled the smile that was the woman's one beauty. They had not called on her—neither they nor she seemed to have thought of that. And they had not missed her during the week preceding her death, for it had been so cold that few of the women or children had ventured out. But at last some one had noticed that there was no light in the small, isolated house, and investigation showed that there had been none for a week, nor had there been food or fire. And so they found her.

Miss Herrick read no more; her vivid imagination filled in the picture. She saw the woman who had followed her illness "with affectionate sympathy" awaiting her own fate with a grim pride which not even death could conquer. She thought of the days and nights of physical and mental agony