Esther Waters

upon me. You are still very weak, I can see that. Would you like to have one of the nurses to walk round with you? You had better--you might fall and hurt the baby. My word, he is a fine boy.'

'Yes, he is a beautiful boy; it will break my heart to part with him.'

Some eight or nine poor girls stood outside, dressed alike in dingy garments, like half-dead flies trying to crawl through an October afternoon; and with their babies and a keen wind blowing, they found it difficult to hold on their hats.

'It do catch you a bit rough, coming out of them 'ot rooms,' said a woman standing by her. 'I'm that weak I can 'ardly carry my baby. I dunno 'ow I shall get as far as the Edgware Road. I take my bus there. Are you going that way?'

'No, I'm going close by, round the corner.'

HER hair hung about her, her hands and wrists were shrunken, her flesh was soft and flabby, for suckling her child seemed to draw all strength from her, and her nervous depression increased from day to day, she being too weary and ill to think of the future; and for a whole week her physical condition held her to the exclusion of every other thought. Mrs. Jones was very kind, charging her only ten shillings a week for her board and lodging; but this was a great deal when no more than two pounds five shillings remained between her and the workhouse, and this fact was brought home to her sternly when Mrs. Jones came to her for the first week's money. Ten shillings gone; only one pound fifteen shillings left, and still she was so weak that she could hardly get up and down stairs. But if she were twice as weak, if she had to crawl along the street on her hands

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