How she had many times had to choose between begging her meal and going to bed without it, but, thank Heaven! she had always chosen the latter.
She told him of hunger, cold, and anguish.

As she spoke they became real things to him; up to that moment they had been things in a story-book.
And as she spoke she rocked herself from side to side.
Indeed, she was a woman "acquainted with grief." She might have said, "Here I and sorrow sit.

This is my throne, bid kings come and bow to it!" Her hearer felt this, and therefore this woman, poor, old, and ugly, became sacred in his eye; it was with a strange sort of respect that he tried to console her.

He spoke to her in tones gentle and sweet as the south wind on a summer evening.
"Madam," said he, "let me be so happy as to bring you some comfort.

The sorrows of the heart I cannot heal; they are for a mightier hand; but a part of your distress appears to have been positive need; that we can at least dispose of, and I entreat you to believe that from this hour want shall never enter that door again.