Rivington Street. Here also is the life of the town. The room is small,
but it contains a cook-stove, a chest of drawers, a small table, a couple
of chairs, and two narrow beds. On the top of the chest are a
looking-glass, some toilet articles, and bottles of medicine. The cracked
walls are bare and not clean. In one of the beds are two children,
sleeping soundly, and on the foot of it is a middle-aged woman, in a
soiled woolen gown with a thin figured shawl drawn about her shoulders, a
dirty cap half concealing her frowzy hair; she looks tired and worn and
sleepy. On the other bed lies a girl of twenty years, a woman in
experience. The kerosene lamp on the stand at the head of the bed casts a
spectral light on her flushed face, and the thin arms that are restlessly
thrown outside the cover. By the bedside sits the doctor, patient,
silent, and watchful. The doctor puts her hand caressingly on that of the
girl. It is hot and dry. The girl opens her eyes with a startled look,
and says, feebly:

"Do you think he will come?"

"Yes, dear, presently. He never fails."

The girl closed her eyes again, and there was silence. The dim rays of
the lamp, falling upon the doctor, revealed the figure of a woman of less
than medium size, perhaps of the age of thirty or more, a plain little
body, you would have said, who paid the slightest possible attention to
her dress, and when she went about the city was not to be distinguished
from a working-woman. Her friends, indeed, said that she had not the
least care for her personal appearance, and unless she was watched, she
was sure to go out in her shabbiest gown and most battered hat. She wore
tonight a brown ulster and a nondescript black bonnet drawn close down on
her head and tied with black strings. In her lap lay her leathern bag,