Then he stood idly looking up at the opposite--the mayor's--house,
with its steps and portico, and its fourteen windows, one of which
was open, and a cluster of little heads visible there.

The mayor's children--I knew them all by sight, though nothing more;
for their father was a lawyer, and mine a tanner; they belonged to
Abbey folk and orthodoxy, I to the Society of Friends--the mayor's
rosy children seemed greatly amused by watching us shivering
shelterers from the rain. Doubtless our position made their own
appear all the pleasanter. For myself it mattered little; but for
this poor, desolate, homeless, wayfaring lad to stand in sight of
their merry nursery window, and hear the clatter of voices, and of
not unwelcome dinner-sounds--I wondered how he felt it.

Just at this minute another head came to the window, a somewhat older
child; I had met her with the rest; she was only a visitor. She
looked at us, then disappeared. Soon after, we saw the front door
half opened, and an evident struggle taking place behind it; we even
heard loud words across the narrow street.

"I will--I say I will."

"You shan't, Miss Ursula."

"But I will!"

And there stood the little girl, with a loaf in one hand and a
carving-knife in the other. She succeeded in cutting off a large
slice, and holding it out.