When Esmay returned she brought with her a bowl containing a small quantity of cottage cheese, hard and yellow with age. Surmounting the bowl was a plate upon which were some crusts of bread and a knuckle of ham, the latter being little more than the bare bone. A table stood in the middle of the room, a handsome piece of buhl-work. Esmay drew it forward to the fire and proceeded to arrange her feast. Scanty enough it seemed, but the cloth covering the table was of the finest damask, the plates that she took from a glazed cabinet were of the precious china of Sevres, the knives and forks were in solid silver, and the drinking-cups of silver-gilt had been fashioned by a great artist. A strange contrast! beggar's fare served so royally; but hunger is not nice about trifles one way or the other. And so it was upon the viands that Nanna's attention was immediately concentrated. She glanced suspiciously at the cheese, despairingly at the knuckle-bone, and then said, solemnly: "Tell me, Esmay, what does it mean? Where is Ugo?" "Ugo has deserted us--like the rats," answered the girl. "And the situation--it is just this." She stopped and took a swallow of water. "It is three months now since she--the mother--slipped away from our arms, and of course the pension stopped with her. I gave the last handful of tokens to Ugo to settle up his wages. So you see I'm a beggar. It's a woman against the world, and one of us will have to devour the other. Lucky, isn't it, that I woke up desperately hungry? That means that I'll make a fight for it. Have the first bite." "Esmay! You know that I have still my widow's rate." "Yes, and I also know that it is barely enough to keep one body and soul together; the two of us would only starve by inches. No use, Nanna, we must take things as we find them. But isn't it strange--" She stopped abruptly and let her glance wander over the luxurious table-service, the gleaming surface of the silver reflecting her troubled eyes. She went on slowly: "All this meant something once--this array of silver and jewelled glass, the tapestries on the walls, the fur cloak about my shoulders. Think of it, Nanna! These things must have been the envied treasures of the rich, the luxuries of life. And now any one may possess them who cares to fight their battle with moth and rust." "While a single one of Dom Gillian's brass tokens outweighs it all," rejoined Nanna, nodding her head wisely. "It is not hard to understand why, for with the token any one may buy a quarterweight of flour at the public stores or a fore-shoulder of mutton."