"Isn't your room rather cold, Mrs. Miller?" He glanced at the black stove, dimly seen in the outer room. "It is necessary to keep the rooms cool just now, but this air seems to me cold." Receiving no answer, he looked at her, and saw the sad truth in her averted face. "I beg your pardon," he said quickly, flushing to the roots of his hair. "I might have known, after what you said to me this evening." "We had a little fire here to-day, sir," she said, struggling with the pride and shame of poverty; "but we have been out of firing for two or three days, and we owe the wharfman something now. The two boys picked up a few chips; but the poor children find it hard to get them, sir. Times are very hard with us, sir; indeed they are. We'd have got along better, if my husband's money had come, and your rent would have been paid--" "Never mind the rent!--don't speak of that!" he broke in, with his face all aglow. "Mrs. Miller, I haven't done right by you,--I know it. Be frank with me. Are you in want of--have you--need of--food?" No need of answer to that faintly stammered question. The thin, rigid face was covered from his sight by the worn, wan hands, and all the pride and shame of poverty, and all the frigid truth of cold, hunger, anxiety, and sickened sorrow they had concealed, had given way at last in a rush of tears. He could not speak. With a smitten heart, he knew it all now. Ah! Dr. Renton, you know these people's tricks? you know their lying blazon of poverty, to gather sympathy? "Mrs. Miller,"--she had ceased weeping, and as he spoke, she looked at him, with the tear-stains still on her agitated face, half ashamed that he had seen her,--"Mrs. Miller, I am sorry. This shall be remedied. Don't tell me it sha'n't! Don't! I say it shall! Mrs. Miller, I'm--I'm ashamed of myself. I am indeed." "I am very grateful, sir, I'm sure," said she; "but we don't like to take charity, though we need help; but we can get along now, sir; for I suppose I must keep it, as you say you didn't send it, and use it for the children's sake, and thank God for his good mercy,--since I don't know, and never shall, where it came from, now." "Mrs. Miller," he said quickly, "you spoke in this way before; and I don't know what you refer to. What do you mean by--_it?_"