The face was turned upward, the eyes shut, the mouth helplessly open.

When Marcella saw her, she knew that the unhappy woman had already wept so much in the hours since her husband came back to her that she could weep no more.

The two little girls in the scantiest of clothing, half-fastened, sat on the floor beside her, shivering and begrimed--watching her.

They had been crying at the tops of their voices, but were now only whimpering miserably, and trying at intervals to dry their tear-stained cheeks with the skirts of their frocks.

The baby, wrapped in an old shawl, lay on its mother's knee, asleep and unheeded.