We undressed him, and found his beautiful white body all discoloured with bruises. The mother began to sob again, with a chorus of babies. The girls tried to soothe the weeping, while I rubbed butter into the silent, wincing boy. Then his mother caught him in her arms, and kissed him passionately, and cried with abandon. The boy let himself be kissed—then he too began to sob, till his little body was all shaken. They folded themselves together, the poor dishevelled mother and the half-naked boy, and wept themselves still. Then she took him to bed, and the girls helped the other little ones into their nightgowns, and soon the house was still. “I canna manage ’em, I canna,” said the mother mournfully. “They growin’ beyont me—I dunna know what to do wi’ ’em. An’ niver a ’and does ’e lift ter ’elp me—no—’e cares not a thing for me—not a thing—nowt but makes a mock an’ a sludge o’ me.” “Ah, baby!” said Lettie, setting the bonny boy on his feet, and holding up his trailing nightgown behind him, “do you want to walk to your mother—go then—Ah!” The child, a handsome little fellow of some sixteen months, toddled across to his mother, waving his hands as he went, and laughing, while his large hazel eyes glowed with pleasure. His mother caught him, pushed the silken brown hair back from his forehead, and laid his cheek against hers. “Ah!” she said, “Tha’s got a funny Dad, tha’ has, not like another man, no, my duckie. ’E’s got no ’art ter care for nobody, ’e ’asna, ma pigeon—no,—lives like a stranger to his own flesh an’ blood.” The girl with the wounded cheek had found comfort in Leslie. She was seated on his knee, looking at him with solemn blue eyes, her solemnity increased by the quaint round head, whose black hair was cut short. “’S my chalk, yes it is, ’n our Sam says as it’s ’issen, an’ ’e ta’es it and marks it all gone, so I wouldna gie ’t ’im,”—she clutched in her fat little hand a piece of red chalk. “My Dad gen it me, ter mark my dolly’s face red, what’s on’y wood—I’ll show yer.” She wriggled down, and holding up her trailing gown with one hand, trotted to a corner piled with a child’s rubbish, and hauled out a hideous carven caricature of a woman, and brought it to Leslie. The face of the object was streaked with red. “’Ere sh’ is, my dolly, what my Dad make me—’er name’s Lady Mima.” “Is it?” said Lettie, “and are these her cheeks? She’s not pretty, is she?” “Um—sh’ is. My Dad says sh’ is—like a lady.” “And he gave you her rouge, did he?” “Rouge!” she nodded. “And you wouldn’t let Sam have it?” “No—an’ mi mower says, Dun gie ’t ’im’—’n ’e bite me.” “What will your father say?” “Me Dad?” “’E’d nobbut laugh,” put in the mother, “an’ say as a bite’s bett’r’n a kiss.” “Brute!” said Leslie feelingly. “No, but ’e never laid a finger on ’em—nor me neither. But ’e’s not like another man—niver tells yer nowt. He’s more a stranger to me this day than ’e wor th’ day I first set eyes on ’im.” “Where was that?” asked Lettie.