his way."

"If it's stealing,--" said Clare.

"Stealing! It's no stealing! The dairy's mine! I can give my milk
where I please!"

"Well, ma'am, if the milk's mine because you gave it me, it's not
begging to ask you to give me a piece of bread for it! I could take a
share of that to Tommy!"

"Run, Chris," cried the mother, hurriedly; "take the innocent with
you--round outside the yard. Give him a hunch of bread, and let him
go. For God's sake don't let your father see him! Run, my boy, run!
There's no time to drink the milk now!"

She poured it back into the pail, and set the cup out of the way.

There was a little passage and another door, by which they left as the
farmer entered. The kick he would have given Clare with his heavy boot
would, in its consequences, have reached the baby too. The girl ran
with him to the back of the house.

"Wait a moment at that window," she said.

Now whether it was loving-kindness all, or that she dared not take the
time to divide it, I cannot tell, but she handed Clare a whole loaf,
and that a good big one, of home-made bread, and disappeared before he
could thank her, telling him to run for his life.