“Are you so very——” “Not a bit of it,” cried the lad, shaking his head free, and making a dive at his books, that the poor mother might not see his hard struggle to keep from crying. “Hungry, oh, no! Didn’t one of the big boys give me half his lunch? That’s a roundabout whopper, I know,” he muttered to himself; “but them eyes, I couldn’t stand ’em, and she been sick so long. Capital lunch it was, too: corned beef sandwiches and pickles—famous! So just think of yourself, mother, not me. But here comes Eva. Hurra!” Sure enough, that moment Eva Laurence came through the little gate, sad, weary, and despondent, moving through the dusky flowers like a spirit of night. She entered the little sitting-room, and going directly up to her mother, kissed her in silence. Then she sat down on an edge of the couch, looked tenderly upon her invalid sister, and whispered to her, “Have you had nothing? Has no raven or dove from Heaven come to feed you, my poor darling?” Ruth shook her head, and tried to smile. “It is mother who needs it most,” she said. “She is not used to being ill, poor darling, and did without so long herself before she would own that we were getting short. Have you brought nothing for her?” Eva shook her head, and whispered, “I did ask. Don’t think me a coward, Ruth, but they will not break their rules, down there, for anyone.” “What can we do?” cried the sick girl, clasping her hands. “I can wait, but mother and poor Jim? Then you will break down.” “No,” answered Eva, almost bitterly. “Mr. Harald has insisted on sharing his lunch with me every day—that is the worst of it. I am kept strong and rosy, while you and mother, who need wholesome food much more, are left here to suffer. You don’t know, Ruthy, dear, how I have longed for an opportunity to hide some of his nice things away, and bring them home; but he always eats with me, and I have no courage to speak. So I feast like a princess, and feel guilty as a thief.” “But you need strength so much more than we do,” answered Ruth, clasping her pale hands over Eva’s neck, and kissing her beautiful face. “It would break my heart to see you growing pale and thin like the rest of us.” Eva sprang to her feet, stung with unreasonable contrition for having tasted the food she could not share with those she loved. “What can I do? Is there nothing left? If we could only bridge over the next two days—but how?” “Just you hold on,” said little Jim, pitching his pile of books into the next room, and shutting the door upon them with a bang, as if nothing less than a great effort could free him from temptation. “Just you hold on. This is a free country, and every American has a right to have something to eat; yes, and be President of the United States, if the whole people want him to—not to speak of women who haven’t got their inalienable rights to be men just yet, but are hungry and thirsty just the same. Give me a chance, now.”