“My tale is briefly told,” she answered.  “Forced by the cruelty of a villain to leave my comfortable home in New Orleans, I sought refuge in the Confederate lines.  I anticipated that refugees would meet with a welcome from the more fortunate people of the South.  In that I was disappointed; for when my means gave out, and every endeavor to procure work to feed my children had failed—­when I had not a dollar to purchase bread for my innocent babes, I applied for assistance.  None but the most dire necessity would have prompted me to such a step, and, Oh, God! when it was refused—­when the paltry pittance I asked for was refused, the hope which I had clung so despairingly to, vanished, and I felt myself indeed a miserable woman.  Piece after piece of furniture went, until all was gone—­my clothing was next sold to purchase bread.  The miserable life I led, the hours spent with my children around me crying for bread—­the agonizing pangs which rent my mother’s heart when I felt I could not comply with their demand—­all—­all combined to make me an object of abject misery.  But why describe my sufferings?  The balance of my tale is short.  I was forced out of the shelter I occupied because I could not pay the owner his rent.  My oldest child was then ill, and in the bleak night wind, canopied by heaven alone, I was thrust, homeless, from a shelter owned by a man whose wealth should have made him pause ere he performed such an act.  With my sick child in my arms I wandered, I knew not where, until I found she had fainted.  Hurrying to a small cabin on the road, I entered and there discovered an old negro woman.  From the lips of a slave I first heard words of kindness, and for the first time aid was extended to me.  Applying restoratives, my child revived and I waited until next morning, when I returned once more to ask for aid.  A paltry sum was handed to me, more for the sake of getting rid of the mendicant than to relieve my distress.  I felt that the sum offered was insufficient to supply the demands of my sick daughter and my starving boy.  I was turning in despair away when my eye lit upon a package of money resting on the safe.  For a moment I hesitated, but the thought of my children rose uppermost in my mind, and, seizing the package I hurried from the store.”

“So you did take the money,” said Harry.

“Yes,” she replied, “but it did me little good, for when the doctor was called he pronounced my daughter beyond medical skill.  She died that evening, and all the use to which the money was appropriated, was the purchase of a coffin.”

“Then the—­the—­” said Harry, hesitating to use the word theft, “then, it was not discovered that you had taken the money until your child was dead and buried.”