"We may be about the same age, you and me. If I am older, it is not above a year or two. Oh think of that!"
She opened her arms, as though the exhibition of her outward form would show the moral wretch she was; and letting them drop at her sides, hung down her head.
"There is nothing we may not hope to repair; it is never too late to amend," said Harriet. "You are penitent—"
"No," she answered. "I am not! I can’t be. I am no such thing. Why should I be penitent, and all the world go free? They talk to me of my penitence. Who’s penitent for the wrongs that have been done to me?"
She rose up, bound her handkerchief about her head, and turned to move away.
"Where are you going?" said Harriet.
"Yonder," she answered, pointing with her hand. "To London."
"Have you any home to go to?"
"I think I have a mother. She’s as much a mother, as her dwelling is a home," she answered with a bitter laugh.
"Take this," cried Harriet, putting money in her hand. "Try to do well. It is very little, but for one day it may keep you from harm."
"Are you married?" said the other, faintly, as she took it.
"No. I live here with my brother. We have not much to spare, or I would give you more."
"Will you let me kiss you?"
Seeing no scorn or repugnance in her face, the object of her charity bent over her as she asked the question, and pressed her lips against her cheek. Once more she caught her arm, and covered her eyes with it; and then was gone.
Gone into the deepening night, and howling wind, and pelting rain; urging her way on towards the mist-enshrouded city where the blurred lights gleamed; and with her black hair, and disordered head-gear, fluttering round her reckless face.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
ANOTHER MOTHER AND DAUGHTER.
In an ugly and dark room, an old woman, ugly and dark too, sat listening to the wind and rain, and crouching over a meagre fire. More constant to the last-named occupation than the first, she never changed her attitude, unless, when any stray drops of rain fell hissing on the smouldering embers, to raise her head with an awakened attention to the whistling and pattering outside, and gradually to let it fall again lower and lower and lower as she sunk into a brooding state of thought, in which the noises of the night were as indistinctly regarded as is the monotonous rolling of a sea by one who sits in contemplation on its shore.
There was no light in the room save that which the fire afforded. Glaring sullenly from time to time like the eye of a fierce beast half
