The yellow book: an illustrated quarterly (7.1895)

Martha

By Mrs. Murray Hickson

I
From the first day that she came to Underwood Terrace Martha
interested me. She arrived, I remember, one dull November
afternoon. I saw her pass down the street, peering, in a short-
sighted fashion, at the numbers over the doors. She carried a large
bonnet-box in one hand and a neat brown paper parcel in the
other. She had no umbrella, and the rain dripped from the limp
brim of her large straw hat. Her skirt, shabby and worn, had
slipped from her overladen fingers and dragged upon the muddy
pavement. I don’t’ know why I noticed her, but, as I glanced up
from my book, my eyes fell upon her forlorn little figure, and I
felt that sudden, curious sensation of pity which sometimes, we
don’t know why, takes us by the throat and shakes us out of our
egotism and self-reflection. Very possibly my first interest in her
was merely a matter of mood. Perhaps, had I been happier
myself, I should not have taken much notice of her ; but my
own concerns appeared, just then, so dull and grey that it was a
relief to turn from them to the contemplation of somebody else’s.
For the present, however, the little figure in the draggled black
frock