The little lean-to place, full of odds and ends of rubbish, and darkened overhead by a string of damp clothes--was intolerably cold in the damp February dawn.

The children were blue; the mother felt like ice as Marcella stooped to touch her.

Outcast misery could go no further.
The mother moaned as she felt Marcella's hand, then started wildly forward, straining her thin neck and swollen eyes that she might see through the two open doors of the kitchen and the outhouse.
"They're not taking him away ?" she said fiercely.

"Jenkins swore to me they'd give me notice." "No, he's still there," said Marcella, her voice shaking.

"The inspector's come.