still leaning out of the upstairs window, "She's home." Then she
introduced me.

"This is Miss Heath. Miss Dandridge Heath, Mrs. Gibbons; and I'm
Bettina Woll. We've come to see you. Can we come in?"

Mrs. Gibbons, who had nodded imperceptibly in my direction as Bettina
called my name, motioned limply toward a room on my right, and as I
entered it I looked at her and saw at once that she, too, belonged to
the unqualified and unfit. She must once have been a pretty woman,
but her hair and eyes were now a dusty black, her skin the color of
putty, and her mouth a drooping curve that gave to her face the
expression of one who was about to cry. Life had apparently for some
time been more than she was equal to, and, incapable of battling
further with it, she radiated a helplessness that was pitiable and
yet irritating. Thin and flat-chested, her uncorseted figure in its
rusty black dress straightened for half a minute, then again it
relaxed.

"Take a seat, won't you?" Her voice was as listless as her eyes.
"It's warmer in the kitchen. Maybe you'd better come back there. My
little girl's in there. She's sick."

As we turned to leave the room I glanced around it. The windows were
down, the shutters closed, but by the light which came through the
broken slats and cheap lace curtains, whose ends were spread
expansively on the bare floor, I saw its furnishings. A bed, covered
with a white spread and with pillow-shams embroidered in red cotton,
was against the side of the wall facing the windows, and close to it
was a table on which lay a switch of coarse black hair. A