By the light of a lamp near it, he sees that the woman is of a haggard appearance, and that her weazen chin is resting on her hands, and that her eyes are staring--with an unwinking, blind sort of steadfastness--before her.
Always kindly, but moved to be unusually kind this evening, and having bestowed kind words on most of the children and aged people he has met, he at once bends down, and speaks to this woman.
'Are you ill ?' 'No, deary,' she answers, without looking at him, and with no departure from her strange blind stare.
'Are you blind ?' 'No, deary.' 'Are you lost, homeless, faint?
What is the matter, that you stay here in the cold so long, without moving ?' By slow and stiff efforts, she appears to contract her vision until it can rest upon him; and then a curious film passes over her, and she begins to shake.
He straightens himself, recoils a step, and looks down at her in a dread amazement; for he seems to know her.
'Good Heaven!' he thinks, next moment.

'Like Jack that night!' As he looks down at her, she looks up at him, and whimpers: 'My lungs is weakly; my lungs is dreffle bad.

Poor me, poor me, my cough is rattling dry!' and coughs in confirmation horribly.
'Where do you come from ?' 'Come from London, deary.' (Her cough still rending her.) 'Where are you going to ?' 'Back to London, deary.

I came here, looking for a needle in a haystack, and I ain't found it.

Look'ee, deary; give me three-and-sixpence, and don't you be afeard for me.