An awkward pause followed, each waiting for the other to speak.

"I will come when you send for me," said Redding, without looking at
her, and, turning abruptly, he strode down the steps and out into
the dusk.

Lucy caught her breath and started forward, then she remembered the
woman.

"What is it?" she asked listlessly.

The woman stepped forward, and put out a hand to steady herself
against the door; her face was distorted, and her voice came in
gasps.

"You said I was to come if I needed you. It's Jimmy, ma'am--he's
dead!"

IT may be experience of suffering makes one especially tender to the
heart-aches of others; at any rate, the article that Lucy Olcott
wrote for the paper that night held the one touch of nature that
makes the whole world kin. She had taken Aunt Chloe, the old colored
servant, and gone home with Mrs. Wiggs, relieving as far as possible
the immediate need of the family. Then she had come home and written
their story, telling it simply, but with the passionate earnestness
of one who, for the first time, has come into contact with poverty
and starvation. She told of the plucky struggle made by the boy, of
his indomitable courage, of his final defeat, and she ended by
asking help of any kind for the destitute family.