Page:Robins - My Little Sister.djvu/52

40 punishment had to be invented. Bettina, who dearly loved society, must be left alone to finish breakfast—a plan that seemed to work, for when one of us went back in a few minutes, Bettina's plate would be bare. Then the awful discovery one day, in cleaning out a seldom-opened part of the side-board—a great collection of toast and bits of mouldy bacon, pushed quite to the back of the capacious drawer.

While we sat laughing over the old misdeed, feeling very grown up now and superior, a face looked in at the window—a pinched, unhappy face, with hungry eyes. A woman stood out there, holding a baby wrapped in a shawl. The window was shut, for the rain had begun as we sat down—heavy leaden drops out of a leaden sky.

I ran and opened the window. "What is it?" I said, quite unnecessarily. The woman told us she had started for the hop-fields that morning. She had no money to pay a railway fare, but a man had given her a lift as far as the village. She did not know how she was going to reach the hop-fields.

At that moment I heard my mother's voice. "What are you doing? Shut the window