Page:The Mystery of Central Park.djvu/41

Rh evidence of grief when the search among the labelled rough-boxes was successful.

"Mrs. Lang," read the man who was assisting the woman in her search, "from the Almshouse?"

"Yes, that was her name, true enough. The Lord rest her soul!" the woman responded fervently, and the man slid the lid across the box, and the little old woman, holding the handkerchief over her stubby nose, peeped in.

"Yes, that's her; that's Mrs. Lang. Poor thing! Ah! she do look desolate," she wailed. "She hasn't a fri'nd in all the world," she continued, looking with her weak eyes at Penelope, who sympathetically stopped by her. "She was eighty years old, and paralyzed from her knees down. Poor thing, they took her to the Almshouse not quite a month ago, and she looks like she'd had a hard time, sure enough. Poor Mrs. Lang, she do look desolate."