She knew that she need not hesitate to use the little piece of money.

It had evidently been lying in the mud for some time, and its owner was completely lost in the streams of pa.s.sing people who crowded and jostled each other all through the day.

"But I'll go and ask the baker's woman if she has lost a piece of money," she said to herself, rather faintly.

So she crossed the pavement and put her wet foot on the step of the shop; and as she did so she saw something which made her stop.

It was a little figure more forlorn than her own--a little figure which was not much more than a bundle of rags, from which small, bare, red and muddy feet peeped out--only because the rags with which the wearer was trying to cover them were not long enough. Above the rags appeared a shock head of tangled hair and a dirty face, with big, hollow, hungry eyes.

Sara knew they were hungry eyes the moment she saw them, and she felt a sudden sympathy.

"This," she said to herself, with a little sigh, "is one of the Populace--and she is hungrier than I am."

The child--this "one of the Populace"--stared up at Sara, and shuffled herself aside a little, so as to give her more room. She was used to being made to give room to everybody. She knew that if a policeman chanced to see her, he would tell her to "move on."

Sara clutched her little four-penny piece, and hesitated a few seconds.

Then she spoke to her.

"Are you hungry?" she asked.

The child shuffled herself and her rags a little more.

"Ain't I jist!" she said, in a hoa.r.s.e voice. "Jist ain't I!"

"Haven't you had any dinner?" said Sara.

"No dinner," more hoa.r.s.ely still and with more shuffling, "nor yet no bre'fast--nor yet no supper--nor nothin'."

"Since when?" asked Sara.

"Dun'no. Never got nothin' to-day--nowhere. I've axed and axed."

Just to look at her made Sara more hungry and faint. But those queer little thoughts were at work in her brain, and she was talking to herself though she was sick at heart.

"If I'm a princess," she was saying--"if I'm a princess--! When they were poor and driven from their thrones--they always shared--with the Populace--if they met one poorer and hungrier. They always shared. Buns are a penny each. If it had been sixpence! I could have eaten six. It won't be enough for either of us--but it will be better than nothing."

"Wait a minute," she said to the beggar-child. She went into the shop.

It was warm and smelled delightfully. The woman was just going to put more hot buns in the window.

"If you please," said Sara, "have you lost fourpence--a silver fourpence?" And she held the forlorn little piece of money out to her.

The woman looked at it and at her--at her intense little face and draggled, once-fine clothes.

"Bless us--no," she answered. "Did you find it?"

"In the gutter," said Sara.

"Keep it, then," said the woman. "It may have been there a week, and goodness knows who lost it. You could never find out."

"I know that," said Sara, "but I thought I'd ask you."

"Not many would," said the woman, looking puzzled and interested and good-natured all at once. "Do you want to buy something?" she added, as she saw Sara glance toward the buns.

"Four buns, if you please," said Sara; "those at a penny each."

The woman went to the window and put some in a paper bag. Sara noticed that she put in six.

"I said four, if you please," she explained. "I have only the fourpence."

"I'll throw in two for make-weight," said the woman, with her good-natured look. "I dare say you can eat them some time. Aren't you hungry?"

A mist rose before Sara's eyes.

"Yes," she answered. "I am very hungry, and I am much obliged to you for your kindness, and," she was going to add, "there is a child outside who is hungrier than I am." But just at that moment two or three customers came in at once and each one seemed in a hurry, so she could only thank the woman again and go out.

The child was still huddled up on the corner of the steps. She looked frightful in her wet and dirty rags. She was staring with a stupid look of suffering straight before her, and Sara saw her suddenly draw the back of her roughened, black hand across her eyes to rub away the tears which seemed to have surprised her by forcing their way from under her lids. She was muttering to herself.

Sara opened the paper bag and took out one of the hot buns, which had already warmed her cold hands a little.

"See," she said, putting the bun on the ragged lap, "that is nice and hot. Eat it, and you will not be so hungry."

The child started and stared up at her; then she s.n.a.t.c.hed up the bun and began to cram it into her mouth with great wolfish bites.

"Oh, my! Oh, my!" Sara heard her say hoa.r.s.ely, in wild delight.

"Oh, my!"

Sara took out three more buns and put them down.

"She is hungrier than I am," she said to herself. "She's starving." But her hand trembled when she put down the fourth bun. "I'm not starving,"

she said--and she put down the fifth.

The little starving London savage was still s.n.a.t.c.hing and devouring when she turned away. She was too ravenous to give any thanks, even if she had been taught politeness--which she had not. She was only a poor little wild animal.

"Good-bye," said Sara.

When she reached the other side of the street she looked back. The child had a bun in both hands, and had stopped in the middle of a bite to watch her. Sara gave her a little nod, and the child, after another stare,--a curious, longing stare,--jerked her s.h.a.ggy head in response, and until Sara was out of sight she did not take another bite or even finish the one she had begun.

At that moment the baker-woman glanced out of her shop-window.

"Well, I never!" she exclaimed. "If that young'un hasn't given her buns to a beggar-child! It wasn't because she didn't want them, either--well, well, she looked hungry enough. I'd give something to know what she did it for." She stood behind her window for a few moments and pondered.

Then her curiosity got the better of her. She went to the door and spoke to the beggar-child.

"Who gave you those buns?" she asked her.

The child nodded her head toward Sara's vanishing figure.

"What did she say?" inquired the woman.