and shakings of her fist at a squalling baby who
was lying kicking on his back, neglected, on
the floor.

The Rooney family was about to divide
itself and go upon two separate pedestrian
excursions into different parts of the country,
to startle simple villagers and inhabitants of
roadside cottages with the display of its
wonderful accomplishments. The Rooney sons were
going to tumble southwards in their tights and
spangles; the Rooney father, mother, daughter,
and baby, were going to dance, scrape, and
jingle their way westward with pipe, fiddle,
and tambourine.

The Rooney family was making so much
noise with its preparations, that a timid knock
was repeated thrice outside, and no one in the
room heard it. At last the door was driven
open, and a white face was pushed in.

"Molly!" cried the Rooney mother, and there
was a general hush—so scaring, for the moment,
was the wild white face at the door.

"Arrah, thin, it's you that looks fresh and
rosy after yer mornin' walk!" cried the Rooney
father, with a laugh at his own wit.

"Father's dead!" said Molly, her dark hopeless
eyes wandering away from the people in
the room up the blank walls in a vacant search
for sympathy.

"Dead!" came from all in a chorus, and
then from one:

"Rest his sowl!"

From another:

"He'll give ye no more black eyes!"

And again:

"Ye'll be breakin' yer heart afther him!"

"He's made a lucky flittin'!" said Tim
Rooney, the father. " He'd ha' been thrown
out for rint to-morrow. Have ye any money?"

"I have money," said Molly, unclosing her
hand and showing silver.

"Where did ye get it?" cried Mother Rooney,
eyeing it greedily. "Ah, ye jail-bird!
Ye've been thievin' again, have ye? Ye'll be
goin' abroad some o' these days, my darlin'.
Why don't ye take afther poor honest folks
like uz, and get yer livin' dacent, ye divil
ye!"

"I want to do it," cried Molly, imploringly,
"but they won't let me. None of them will
let me. The days keep coming, one after
another, and force me into badness. Oh, if
you would take me out of the town with you,
Mrs. Rooney, I'll give you this money, and I'll
thramp the counthry like the best! Couldn't I
carry the baby for ye, Mrs. Rooney?" cried
Molly, wringing her hands.

Mother Rooney told her to get out of that
for a slut, and sent her away to bury her
father; but before daylight next morning the
Rooney family had decided that Molly would
be an acquisition to the tramping expedition.
The neglected baby that kicked on the floor had
grown since the last excursion, and Mother
Rooney had found difficulty even then in
managing both it and her fiddle. Molly could
sing ballads and carry the baby. So, the
pauper's funeral being over, Molly was bidden
to enter on her new profession of tramp.

She locked up the door and surrendered the
key to the landlord. The girl's leaden heart
was a little less leaden when she had done this.
In that room she had starved, sinned, mourned,
and despaired. She fetched the neglected baby
out of the Rooney Bedlam below, and sat with
it in a high corner landing of the rickety
staircase. It would be hard to analyse the
chaos of poor Molly's brain. Doubtless there
was a heavy retrospection going on behind
those black eyes wide open in the darkness,
listening to a "death-watch" ticking at her
ear; for Molly in her wanderings had got stray
glimpses of religion—just enough to let her
know that her life was all wrong, and that there
was a better life to be attained somewhere,
but never by her. There was expectation, too,
in those wide-open eyes; but it was very vague
and dull. That a change, no matter what,
was at hand, was Molly's chief idea. She
would get away out of the filthy streets and
lanes, to which she was not dainty enough to
object because of their filthiness, but because
within their boundaries every man's hand
was against her. To what manner of region
she was going, she did not know nor care.
She had never been out of the town in her
life, and the open country was a sealed book
to her. Probably she should get enough to
eat, of some kind; she should not have to steal
—perhaps not even to beg, where there would
be so many more nimble-tongued to do it.
Hard usage and fatigue she was inured to;
any change must be for the better. She got a
crust of bread from the Rooneys that night,
and leave to stretch herself behind their door
till morning.

By dawn they were off on the tramp, Molly
carrying the baby, her pocket stuffed with
dirty ballads; Mother Rooney with her fiddle;
Father Rooney with his pipes and some
baggage; Matilda with her tambourine, and her
dancing-dress covered with a shawl, the point
of which draggled in the mud and dabbled on
the young lady's heels as she went along. The
drizzling rain kept on, and for the first two or
three days, things were wretched. The country
was sheeted in mist, and cottagers kept their
doors shut. The towns they passed through
were uninteresting and inhospitable. A
magnificent show on wheels and a German band
were travelling the same route, arriving in every
place of note just in time to occupy all the public
attention and leave hardly a stray gape of
curiosity for the miserable Rooneys. So they
left the route they had intended to follow, and
struck out on the bog and mountain country.

Tramp, tramp, tramp! Through the drizzling
summer day and far into the drizzling summer
night, four weary dreary figures plodding on,
and never the sign of a dwelling in sight since
the last unfriendly village had been left miles
behind. Hitherto they had always found a
lodging in the shelter of some town, but
tonight there was nothing for it but to creep into