They withdrew into a low archway for shelter from the
rain, and watched the faces of those who passed, to find
in one among them a ray of encouragement or hope. Some
frowned, some smiled, some muttered to themselves, some
made slight gestures, as if anticipating the conversation in
which they would shortly be engaged, some wore the
cunning look of bargaining and plotting, some were anxious
and eager, some slow and dull; in some countenances were
written gain; in others loss. It was like being in the con-
fidence of all these people to stand quietly there, looking
into their faces as they flitted past. In busy places, where
each man has an object of his own, and feels assured that
every other man has his, his character and purpose are
written broadly in his face. In the public walks and
lounges of a town, people go to see and to be seen, and
there the same expression, with little variety, is repeated
a hundred times. The working-day faces come nearer to
the truth, and let it out more plainly.

Falling into that kind of abstraction which such a solitude
awakens, the child continued to gaze upon the passing
crowd with a wondering interest, amounting almost to a
temporary forgetfulness of her own condition. But cold,
wet, hunger, want of rest, and lack of any place in which
to lay her aching head, soon brought her thoughts back to
the point whence they had strayed. No one passed who
seemed to notice them, or to whom she durst appeal. After
some time, they left their place of refuge from the weather,
and mingled with the concourse.

Evening came on. They were still wandering up and
down, with fewer people about them, but with the same
sense of solitude in their own breasts, and the same indiffer-
ence from all around. The lights in the streets and shops
made them feel yet more desolate, for with their help,
night and darkness seemed to come on faster. Shivering
with the cold and damp, ill in body, and sick to death at
heart, the child needed her utmost firmness and resolution
even to creep along.

Why had they ever come to this noisy town, when there
were peaceful country places, in which, at least, they might
have hungered and thirsted, with less suffering than in its
squalid strife! They were but an atom, here, in a mountain
heap of misery, the very sight of which increased their
hopelessness and suffering.

The child had not only to endure the accumulated hard-

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