Penny Blood Serial Fiction — page 54: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

CHAPTER V MORNING IN LONDON — THE DISOWNED BABE Cop, gloomy, and cheerless dawned the wintry morning, like a gray mist that struggles with slow and partial success against night’s dark veil. The frost had broken up suddenly, and was succeeded by a dampness of the atmosphere that hung like a thick and noxious vapour over the mighty metropolis. The watercress girl, shivering in the scant clothing and with her naked feet and ankles of a livid red as if they were raw, could scarcely give forth the usual cry that proclaimed her . presence, so spasmodically did her teeth chatter; and as the poor wretch dragged her weary form along, gazing anxiously at the house doors to see whether the servants were coming out to buy, each bleeding foot left its ensanguined trace on the pavement. Alas! unhappy creature, she had risen at five, and for three long hours that morning had she groped in the utter darkness and amidst the ponds and rivulets in the northern outskirts, for a few pennyworths of green sprigs that were to give a relish to breakfasts eaten in warm rooms and by cheerful fires! But not a morsel of bread had as yet passed her lips, and her hands and her feet were so numbed that they had lost all sense of feeling as she trod the damp pavement or doled forth her cresses. Soon after this poor girl had passed along her usual beat, came the milkmaid with cheeks as red as if she were a forest hoyden, and with her buxom charms denoting by their round, plump, and swelling contours the enjoyment of a vigorous health. She was warmly clad, with a thick shawl over her shoulders, and good stockings, and lace-up leathern boots; and though she felt the cold, yet ’twas not with that shivering wretchedness and shuddering sensation of misery : a7 GOMIIGdoOoks (C©)