Forgetting in an instant both his hunger and his weakness, Robin lifted the little child into his arms. She was very pretty; she had golden curls peeping out under her fur cap, and her eyes were as blue as the July sky. Robin had never seen anything so lovely as her little face appeared to him in his life. The feel of her fur clad arms round his neck comforted and warmed him; he was by no means anxious to get rid of her. He hurried down the first side street he could find, and then leant against the wall that was most in shadow, to take breath and think. He did this because he feared that in the open street the police would see him, and remove the pretty child from his care. The moment he took her up she stopped crying, nor did she speak until Robin paused to rest. "Are we going 'ome, boy?" she said then. "Yes, yes, little missy, ef little missy'll tell me where." "Go on, then," she said, beating his shoulder impatiently. "But I doesn't know the way. Where'll I take you, pretty little dear?" "What 'ou say?" demanded the child. "Where does missy live? and I'll take 'er 'ome this blessed minit." "Tupid boy!" repeated the little thing impatiently. "Where I live? Course I live wid my ma-_ma_; dere! Go on." Robin moved forward a few paces, a good deal puzzled now, for he saw the child could not direct him. What should he do with her? Of course the police would take her off his hands at once; but somehow he liked to have her with him; he was not nearly so lonely nor hungry since she was in his arms. Surely he might keep her for one night, and give her up to the police in the morning; the touch of her clinging arms was so pleasant to him, and then she was so lovely! He had seen flowers in shop-windows, he had seen beautiful children, but never before had so fair a little face been brought close to his own. In the midst of his meditations the child called out Imperiously,-- "Go on quicker, wagged boy! I hungly, and I want my ma-_ma_." This remark came upon Robin with a kind of shock; for the last few minutes he had really, in his excitement and pleasure, forgotten his own exceeding hunger; but these few words brought it painfully back to him. He was hungry, and had no means to buy food; that now was a small thing; but the little child in his arms was also hungry, and he had nothing to give her; measuring her hunger by his own, he felt almost agony at the thought of what she must be suffering. He did not know that the well-fed child had never experienced the true meaning of that terrible word hunger. But her healthy appetite being awake, she went on moaning fretfully,-- "I so hungly, so hungly. Dolly _do_ want her supper, and ma-_ma_."