railway-track, with long trains of empty freight-cars.

"We are nearly there," he whispered. "It's time you knew your
work, and forgot your weakness. The curse of pampered
generations. `High Norman blood,'--pah!"

There was a broken gap in the fence. He led her through it into
a muddy yard. Inside was one of those taverns you will find in
the suburbs of large cities, haunts of the lowest vice. This one
was a smoky frame, standing on piles over an open space where
hogs were rooting. Half a dozen drunken Irishmen were playing
poker with a pack of greasy cards in an out-house. He led her up
the rickety ladder to the one room, where a flaring tallow-dip
threw a saffron glare into the darkness. A putrid odour met them
at the door. She drew back, trembling.

"Come here!" he said, fiercely, clutching her hand. "Women as
fair and pure as you have come into dens like this,--and never
gone away. Does it make your delicate breath faint? And you a
follower of the meek and lowly Jesus! Look here! and here!"

The room was swarming with human life. Women, idle trampers,
whiskey-bloated, filthy, lay half-asleep, or smoking, on the
floor, and set up a chorus of whining begging when they entered.
Half-naked children crawled about in rags. On the damp, mildewed
walls there was hung a picture of the Benicia Boy, and close by,
Pio Nono, crook in hand, with the usual inscription, "Feed my
sheep." The Doctor looked at it.

" `Tu es Petrus, et super hanc'---- Good God! what IS truth?" he