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TEE 8ILEXT PLEA
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anciently real. She raised her head proudly.
"I want you to go," she said sharply; "I understand you now — understand you quite. Your proposi
THE
MOTHER
PLEADS
IN
VAIN
tion is contemptible. You are worse than contemptible. I want you to
got"
The Boss was a coward. Such men are. To cover his defeat he assumed the sneering bravado peculiar to his kind.
"As you say, girlie — as you say," he observed airily. "I'm off, but ym'll be off, too."
Marie, in the cold despair of the days following, did not awake to the full sense of the Boss' words. They came home to her, fully, forcefully, the next time she took her work to the factory. She was fired. No appeal to the friendly foreman could save her. The Boss had spoken. His word was law. Once again the endless city pavements ; once again the hunger-look on the children's faces; once again — oh, Father in Heaven, the city's gruelling clutch !
On that walk home Marie tasted the bitterest draught of the waters of Lethe. She questioned her God; she wondered, futilely, what she had done that this thing of horror should be hers. Did torment come on earth?. Had her heaven passed ?
As she neared the tall, closely elbowed building she called home, the tinpanny, jangly notes of a hand-organ grated on her ear. A crowd of typical street children were gathered about, and some one was dancing in the center of the group. It was Audrey — her little, timid, shrinking girl of that dear long ago. No timidity now. There was an unrestraint in every coarse gesture; a gypsy rowdiness that cut to her mother's heart.
' • Audrey ! ' ' she sharply commanded. The child stared impudently ; then recommenced the wild commotion of hands and
ARRESTED FOR GAMBLING
feet. Marie broke thru the applauding mob of slouchy, half-grown boys and girls and dragged the child after her. In the tiny sitting-room at home