Page:Live and Let Live.djvu/10

10 you all asleep?" replied, "Mother does not wish any bread this morning."

"Don't wish any! then she's easily served;" and, thus huffily answering, he was turning away, when another look at the girl touched his kind heart. "Tell me honestly," he added, "what is the reason your mother don't wish the bread."

The little girl's voice was choked, and the tears gushed from her eyes as she answered, "She has not a shilling to pay for it."

"That's blamed hard this cold morning, besides being tough—but take the loaf—we can trust you."

"No—mother had rather not—father is sick, and it takes all she can earn, every penny, to buy things for him and Jemmie."

"Well, take it for a gift, then," said the boy; "I'll speak to my father about it;" and, thrusting the loaf into her hands, he jumped into his cart and rattled off. For a month after Charles Lovett called daily at that house of want, and left a shilling loaf. This is no fiction, but one of those beautiful facts that deserve to be rescued from obscurity.

The little girl ran up to her mother's apartment, a back-room on the second floor. "Lucy, my child!" exclaimed her mother, reprovingly, on seeing the loaf of bread. Lucy explained in a low voice, to avoid her father overhearing her, who was lying ill in his bed. Mrs. Lee brushed away a tear. "Did not I always tell you so, mother?" asked Lucy.

"Tell me what?"

"I mean, did not I tell you that boy always looked so kind, and spoke so civil! I knew he was