She got up and went to the window. There, below, stood the group of grey black little figures, relieved against the snow, which now enveloped everything. “For old sake’s sake,” as she phrased it, she counted out a halfpenny apiece for the singers, out of the copper bag, and threw them down below. The room had become chilly while she had been counting out and throwing down her money, so she stirred her already glowing fire, and sat down right before it—but not to stretch her lace; like Mary Hodgson, she began to think over long-past days, on softening remembrances of the dead and gone, on words long forgotten, on holy stories heard at her mother’s knee. “I cannot think what’s come over me to-night,” said she, half aloud, recovering herself by the sound of her own voice from her train of thought—“My head goes wandering on them old times. I’m sure more texts have come into my head with thinking on my mother within this last half hour, than I’ve thought on for years and years. I hope I’m not going to die. Folks say, thinking too much on the dead betokens we’re going to join ’em; I should be loth to go just yet—such a fine turkey as we’ve got for dinner to-morrow, too!” Knock, knock, knock, at the door, as fast as knuckles could go. And then, as if the comer could not wait, the door was opened, and Mary Hodgson stood there as white as death. “Mrs. Jenkins!—oh, your kettle is boiling, thank God! Let me have the water for my baby, for the love of God! He’s got croup, and is dying!” Mrs. Jenkins turned on her chair with a wooden inflexible look on her face, that (between ourselves) her husband knew and dreaded for all his pompous dignity. “I’m sorry I can’t oblige you, ma’am; my kettle is wanted for my husband’s tea. Don’t be afeared, Tommy, Mrs. Hodgson won’t venture to intrude herself where she’s not desired. You’d better send for the doctor, ma’am, instead of wasting your time in wringing your hands, ma’am—my kettle is engaged.” Mary clasped her hands together with passionate force, but spoke no word of entreaty to that wooden face—that sharp, determined voice; but, as she turned away, she prayed for strength to bear the coming trial, and strength to forgive Mrs. Jenkins. Mrs. Jenkins watched her go away meekly, as one who has no hope, and then she turned upon herself as sharply as she ever did on any one else. “What a brute I am, Lord forgive me! What’s my husband’s tea to a baby’s life? In croup, too, where time is everything. You crabbed old vixen, you!—any one may know you never had a child!” She was down stairs (kettle in hand) before she had finished her self-upbraiding; and when in Mrs. Hodgson’s room, she rejected all thanks (Mary had not the voice for many words), saying, stiffly, “I do it for the poor babby’s sake, ma’am, hoping he may live to have mercy to poor dumb beasts, if he does forget to lock his cupboards.”