health, and after the shortest of illnesses--too short to alarm anyone,
too short for even the word danger to be whispered--closed her eyes
on this world, leaving Bet in a state of bewildered and impotent rage.

There was no longer the faintest doubt in her orphaned heart that she
loved her mother.




CHAPTER IV.


Bet wept silently for the greater part of the day which saw her
motherless, but in the evening she went out as usual to sell her papers.
Her eyes were swollen from the heavy and constant tears she shed, but
she had neatly plaited her hair and wound it round her comely head,
and she carried herself with even a little more defiance than usual.
She was miserable to-night, and she felt that the whole world was
against her.

The night, for the time of year was November, was quite in accordance
with her feelings. It was damp, a drizzling mist was blown into her
face, and the pavements were slippery with that peculiar Liverpool mud
which exceeds even London mud in slipperiness. Bet's beat, however,
was brightly lighted; there was a public-house at one corner, and a
little further up were two gentlemen's clubs. All were brilliant with
gaslight, and the girl, wrapping her shawl about her--she wore no hat
or bonnet--took her accustomed stand. She always avoided the
public-house--not because she feared its tipsy inhabitants, but because