wrap her in." He regretted vainly that he had not come for the child in
a carriage. He paid without a question what the woman said was owing;
and, with Eunice folded in a ragged plaid, prepared to depart. "I
guess," the child decided, in a strangely mature voice, "we'd better
take my medicine." She turned toward a mantel, Mrs. Needles made a quick
movement in the same direction, but the small shape was before her.
Jasper Penny took a bottle from the diminutive, cold hand. The label had
been obliterated; but, impelled by a distrustful curiosity, he took out
the cork.

Laudanum!

He was at the point of an indignant condemnation when the words perished
without utterance--not the haggard woman before him, but himself, Jasper
Penny, was entirely guilty. He, in reality, had given the drug to his
daughter, placed her in this sorry and bitter poverty. "Come, Eunice,"
he said, taking her by the hand, his face grey and stony.

Once more in the city he walked with the child to the ferry and foot of
Chestnut Street, where they found places in The Reaper, a stage brightly
painted with snowy ships and drawn by four sorrel horses. His first
concern was to purchase proper clothes for his daughter; then he would
face the problem of her happier disposal. They passed the columned
façade of the Philadelphia Bank, the Custom House with its wide steps
set back from the street, hedged dwellings, and the United States Hotel
to Independence Square and Sixth Street, where he lifted the child from
the stage. They stopped before an entrance between bowed windows which
had above it the sign, The Misses Dunlop, Millinery.

Jasper Penny had had no idea that it would be so difficult to procure