reason. But no one who has never been blessed with only a penny to
spend and a mighty hunger behind it, can understand the interest
with which he stood there and through the glass watched the bread,
having no penny and only the hunger. There is at least one powerful
bond, though it may not always awake sympathy, between mudlark and
monarch -- that of hunger. No one has yet written the poetry of
hunger -- has built up in verse its stairs of grand ascent -- from such
hunger as Gibbie's for a penny-loaf up -- no, no, not to an alderman's
feast; that is the way down the mouldy cellar-stair -- but up the
white marble scale to the hunger after righteousness whose very
longings are bliss.

Behind the counter sat the baker's wife, a stout, fresh-coloured
woman, looking rather dull, but simple and honest. She was
knitting, and if not dreaming, at least dozing over her work, for
she never saw the forehead and eyes which, like a young ascending
moon, gazed at her over the horizon of the opaque half of her door.
There was no greed in those eyes -- only much quiet interest. He did
not want to get in; had to wait, and while waiting beguiled the time
by beholding. He knew that Mysie, the baker's daughter, was at
school, and that she would be home within half an hour. He had seen
her with tear-filled eyes as she went, had learned from her the
cause, and had in consequence unwittingly roused Mrs. Croale's
anger, and braved it when aroused. But though he was waiting for
her, such was the absorbing power of the spectacle before him that
he never heard her approaching footsteps.

"Lat me in," said Mysie, with conscious dignity and a touch of
indignation at being impeded on the very threshold of her father's
shop.