Mrs. Smith had known sorrow, and, feeling by intuition that she was in the presence of no ordinary tragedy, she held her peace. "Perhaps," she asked presently, "you are going to adopt this baby? You seem very fond of her." "I love all babies, but I don't think I could adopt one; these workhouse children don't start fair, and I should be too frightened. If the child went wrong later, I don't think I could bear it." Mrs. Smith had been a pupil-teacher, and in the last five years of leisure she had read widely, if confusedly, at the free library. "But people now no longer believe in heredity. Weissman's theory is that environment is stronger then heredity." "Oh!" said the little lady Guardian. "Do read him," said Mrs. Smith excitedly, "and then you won't feel so low-spirited, and perhaps the Guardians will let you adopt the next foundling. But please let me have this one. I have taken to her more than I thought. Oh! please, please----" "I will vote for you at the next Board meeting," said the little lady Guardian, "and may she make up to you for the children you have lost." A few days later Mrs. Annie Smith, her honest face beaming with joy, arrived again at the workhouse, followed by a small servant with a big bundle. The attiring of the infant was long and careful, and many came to help, and then Daphne Daventry was whirled away in a flutter of purple and fine linen, and the burden of the rates was lightened. "MARY, MARY, PITY WOMEN!" A woman sat alone with folded hands in a dark fireless room. There was little or no furniture to hold the dust, and one could see that the pitiful process known as "putting away" had been going on, for the cleanly scrubbed boards and polished grate showed the good housewife's struggle after decency. On a small table in the centre of the room stood half a loaf of bread, a jug of water, and a cup of milk. The woman bore traces of good looks, but her face was grey and pinched with hunger, and in her eyes was a smouldering fire of resentment and despair. Presently the silence and gloom was broken by the entrance of a troop of children returning noisily from school. Their faces fell when they saw the scanty meal, and the youngest, a child of four or five, threw himself sobbing into his mother's arms: "Oh, mother, I'se so hungry; we only had that bit of bread for dinner." "Hush, dear! There is a little milk for you and Gladys; you can drink as far as the blue pattern, and the rest is for her." The mother kissed him and tried to dry his tears; but it is hard to hear one's children crying for food; and presently her fortitude gave way, and she began to sob too. The older children, frightened at her breakdown, clung round her, weeping; and the room echoed like a torture-chamber with sobs and wails.