And Joe

I.

THEODORA JUSTICE sat, with a wearily comfortable air, before an open fire in the sitting-room of her friend, Margaret Denton, M. D.

“ The worst of it is, I have lost my ambitions,” said Theodora. “ I used to have such fine dreams.” She laughed a little. “ I meant to do a few things for the amusement of other people, and a great many for my own pleasure. This morning I came across a plan I drew last year for a Gothic library. I also found a programme I made at the same time for a series of literary and musical entertainments, and a list of guests to be invited from New York and Boston. With this paper was another; and what do you suppose that was ? A set of colored designs I had drawn for preRaphaelite costumes wherewith to adorn my own person. They were quite pretty, too, though you ’ll find it hard to believe ; but I don’t care for them now, nor for the library, nor the parties.”

Her smile was dreary, but before her friend could answer there was a knock at the door, and a servant came in to say that “ Ann Reilly was very bad,” and wanted the doctor.

“ Let me go with you,” said Theodora.

“ Certainly,” answered Margaret ; “ but it is not a pleasant sight you will see.”

Miss Justice was the daughter of the manufacturer who owned the principal share of the factories and houses of the town, but she knew nothing about the people whom she visited with Margaret that night. It was the first time she had ever been in any of their homes, and all her idea of duty towards them had hitherto been satisfied by a halfformed resolution that some time she would build a Gothic library or found an art gallery for them. Now, with new, vague thoughts, she followed Margaret, who took the occasion to visit several patients. They toiled up dark, narrow stairs. They went down into basements. They found a dying girl’s chamber lighted with tapers, and the garment in which she was to be buried lying beside her on the bed. And then they went into a pleasant sitting-room, belonging to a French Canadian family. A carpet was on the floor, a bright-colored cloth over the table ; the chimney shelf was covered with gaudy toys and ornaments. Some flower-pots were on the window sill, and a melodeon stood against the wall. Three or four handsome girls sat round and talked eagerly with the doctor.

After leaving this place, Miss Justice and her companion turned towards home, but had gone only a few steps when they came upon a crowd of jeering boys surrounding a lad who sat forlorn and silent upon the sidewalk. A red light from the window of a little oyster shop streamed about them all.

“ He had an awful fit this mornin’,” said one boy.

“ I say, Joe, did you have any dinner to-day ? ” shouted another, as he turned a somersault that brought him directly in the way of the two ladies as they approached the group.

“ What is the matter ? ” asked Theodora, sternly.

A chorus of voices answered, “ He’s starvin’, he is ! ”

“ Starving ! What do you mean ? Who is he ? ”

The boys giggled, and were silent a moment, till a red-headed Irish urchin said, with a grin, “ Joe Huckleberry, we call him. His mother’s turned him out. I gin him a piece of bread this mornin’, an’ he sleeps round, in the Company barn an’ woodsheds.”

“Joe Huckleberry!” repeated Theodora.

“Yes, that’s what we call him. Can’t just say his name. He’s French.”

Margaret placed her hand on Joe’s shoulder. The boy had remained all this while looking on the ground, apparently waiting in an uninterested mood for some one to do something with him. He looked up now with a silly smile.

“ He has fits,” said the Irish boy.

“ Awful! ” cried another. “ I seen him bite the ground, jest like a dog, in one on ’em.”

“ They comes on anywheres — in the street, or in the mill, jest where he happens to be,” added the red-haired youth, confidentially.

“ Joe, has your mother turned you out-of-doors ? ” asked Margaret.

“ No,” said the boy. “ It’s my brother-in-law.”

“ Do you live with your brother-inlaw?”

“ I did, but he’s turned me out.”

“What did he do it for?” asked Theodora.

“ Dunno,” said Joe. “ He never liked me, nohow. Could n’t bear me afore he married my sister. Half killed me, one day, lickin’ me in the street, jest for nothin’. Come across me, an’ thought he would, I s’pose.”

“ When did he turn you out ? ”

“ Night ’fore last.”

“ And where have you slept ?”

“ Got in ag’in that night, after they was all asleep, an’ went up in the garret an’ slep’.”

“ And last night? ”

“ Got into the Company barn.”

“ What have you had to eat ? ”

“ Nothin’ much.”

“ Where is your mother ? ”

“ She lives with my brother-in-law.”

“ Did she want you turned out ? ”

“ No. She gin me some bread yesterday an’ this mornin’.”

“Is she kind to you ? ”

“ Yes.”

“ Is your sister kind ? ”

“ Yes.”

“ Then what is the matter ? ”

“ Dunno.”

“ Do you work in the mill ? ”

“ I did. I worked up to Slade’s ; but my father come away from there, an’ lef’ me, an’ then I was turned off, an’ I come down here.”

“ Oh, you have a father ? Where is he now ? ”

“ He’s at my brother-in-law’s.”

“ Did he want you sent out into the street ? ”

“ He said I might as well be.”

“ Why don’t you try to get work in the mill here ? ”

“ I don’t think they’d give me none.”

“ Why not ? ”

“I’ve worked here afore.”

Theodora smiled at this ingenuous confession, but said gently, “ Come with me, and I ’ll see that you are taken care of to-night.”

Joe rose, and stood slouching at the lady’s side, while she said to the Irish urchin, “ Will you go and tell Joe’s mother and his sister’s husband that I want them to come up and see me this evening, if possible.”

“ Dunno who you be,” said the boy, promptly.

Theodora felt slightly ashamed to find herself a stranger to these boys, but was relieved when two voices whispered loudly, “ It’s Miss Justice,” and the youngster, thus informed, darted off on his errand.

“ Now, Joe,” said the lady, “ come with me.”

They started, the boy slinking along beside his stately companion, while Margaret walked thoughtfully one or two steps in advance. The crowd of boys stared, giggled, whooped, followed, and at last one voice cried out, —

“ He, he ! Joe’s got a gal ! ”

“ Why don’t you give her your arm, Joe ? ” shouted another.

Theodora’s blood was on fire, but she never turned her head. They were not many rods from her home. Did those few feet of roadway divide civilization from barbarism ? Was it God’s fault, or was it partly hers, that men and manners changed thus, as one went “ down street” from her dwelling ?

“ Keep close to me, Joe,” she said, but her voice shook with indignant shame. Margaret waited for them to come up with her. The boys, still hooting and chuckling, gradually dispersed, and the trio went on unmolested.

The two women took Joe into the kitchen, and gave him supper. When Theodora examined her protégé in the light, her heart sank. He was about fourteen years old, slender and loosely made. His hands were long, dirty, and repulsive. He had reddish, watery eyes and a small, pinched nose. His mouth hung open, and showed traces of tobacco juice about it. The whole face was pale, unhealthy, and idiotic.

“ He looks like a parasite on humanity,” whispered Theodora to Margaret; “ the creature of a horrible, mocking chance.”

“ God knows why he lives,” said Margaret, simply.

Theodora answered, smiling, “ Evidently, science has n’t spoiled your religion yet.”

In process of time Joe’s brother-inlaw, Andrew Moore, arrived, and was ushered into the dining-room, where the ladies proceeded to cross-examine him. He was a good-looking young fellow, about twenty-five years old. He admitted at once that he had set the boy adrift.

“ I was in hopes, ma’am,” said he, “ as he would get took up, an’ sent to the Reform School. I’ve got the whole family on my hands, — the old man ’n’ the old woman, an’ the little uns. My woman hain’t worked much since her baby was born, though the baby’s three or four months old. We are considerable in debt. Joe’s just the ruin of his fam’ly. They can’t stay nowhere on account of this boy. They git turned out of every place they go to. You know rich folks, when they has some one as ain’t quite right, can hire somebody to keep ’em out of mischief; but it comes hard on poor folks, as can’t spare neither time nor money to take care of ’em.”

“ But don’t you think it was cruel to turn him out, when he had nowhere to go ?” asked Theodora, a little astounded by the young man’s cool way of looking at the matter.

“ Well, you see, miss, it was a question between turnin’ him out or the rest of ’em. I can’t feed ’em all, even with old Huckleberry’s help. He ’ll drink ’most all he earns, any way ; an’ Annie’s that sickly she ought not to work at all.

Then Joe’s dangerous when he s mad. He throwed a stone as big as my two fists right through the kitchen winder, an’ then I told him to clear out. It might ha’ killed the baby, let alone my havin’ to pay for the winder.”

“ He says you beat him,” said Theodora.

“ Well, I’ve tried to lick the badness out of him,” frankly admitted the young man. “ You can, out of some boys, you know.”

Finally young Moore was induced to promise to take Joe in for a few days, till Miss Justice could make some other provision for the unfortunate lad. As Moore went out of the door, Joe’s mother appeared. She had been at a neighbor’s, and had only just received Miss Justice’s message. She seemed a decent woman, of English origin, though she was born, she said, and had lived in Canada and the States all her life. Her first husband, the father of Andrew’s wife, was an Englishman ; Joe and her three younger boys were the children of her second marriage with a French Canadian. No, her husband did n’t work much, and he did drink; but he was always good-natured, and she had n’t no fault to find with him. Joe was the trial of her life. If he had work, he would n’t stick to it. He bothered the neighbors, and the family were forced to move from one place to another continually. They had moved four times in a little over two years. They were at “ Slade’s,” the first of the winter, and had been pretty comfortable there, though it was a hard life for her, making the little they could earn feed them all. She could n’t ever think of getting clothes with their wages. The three younger children did not go to school, because they had no shoes ; and it was surprising to see how much they ate, for all they stayed in the house so much, — butter especially. Nights she had plenty to do, getting breakfast ready and drying her husband’s and Joe’s shoes for the next morning. There was so much snow that winter, it kept their shoes wet nearly all the time. She had to wash and dry their clothes in the night, too. And Joe was such a torment, and he acted bad about his work ; and so they packed up, and she come down here; and then his father come too, and left the boy there, hoping he would get “ took up ” and put somewhere. She should n't like to complain of him herself, but if he had got into some trouble and been put into the Reform School, may be it would n’t have been so bad for him. She had n’t done nothing but cry the last three days ; but she could n't blame Andrew for not wanting him round, after he throwed that stone in the window which came so near hitting the baby.

Margaret and Theodora scarcely knew whether to blame or sympathize, and both suspected that her husband’s drinking had more to do with the family destitution than the wife would admit. They dismissed her with some presents of food, and let her take Joe with her, who stumbled a little going out into the darkness.

Theodora came back from the door with a puzzled look.

“ Joe is the problem,” she said. “ His family can’t solve it. Can I ? ”

“ You can try,” said Margaret. “ Dear, ought you not to know your operatives, and seek to be their friend, and not merely their mistress ? ”

Theodora threw out her arms with a mournful gesture.

“ A friend,” she said,— “ that is what they need ; but for me ! Was I made for Joe ? ”

Margaret’s pulses beat in sympathy with this rebellious outcry of a disappointed heart, but her soul saw farther than did Theodora’s dimmed eyes, and she answered, —

“ Not more than Joe was made for you. You need some one to work for. It may be God made him to keep you from aimless idleness.”

II.

Andrew Moore walked away from Miss Justice’s in a bad humor. It was the first time he had ever been in a grand house, the first time he had ever sat in a handsomely appointed room and talked with an elegant woman. Theodora’s calmness irritated him. He resented her superiority. She was very lovely to an educated eye, that could appreciate the beautiful head covered with light brown hair, the delicate features, her supple motions, and the waving lines of her figure ; but this young fellow perceived none of these perfections, lie only felt that she belonged to another world from his, and was angry because, in some indefinite way, he seemed to himself inferior in her presence. He was vexed also because he had been overpowered by her, and had promised to take Joe back.

“ I dare say,” he said to himself, “ that girl thinks she can boss everybody in this village, if she’s a mind to.”

Then he thought of the little weakminded woman who waited for him, with her sickly child, in his squalid home, and grew angrier still, and, calling his sins and follies “ his luck,” he cursed the evil fortune that had joined him to this ill-starred family.

“ I’ve more ’n half a mind to cut the whole concern,” he muttered. “ I meant fair enough, as fair as I could, when I married her, but I did n’t quite count in Joe ! She would n’t do nothin’ if I left her. They ’re too poor to go to law. I don’t care a dime for her, — and yet I’d kinder hate to leave her. She’s such a little fool.”

Andrew Moore was a native American citizen, having been born two weeks after his father and mother landed in this country. They were Irish Protestants of a low class. Andrew grew up in a manufacturing town, and graduated early from school into the mill. In due time he became a mule-spinner. There were absolutely no refining influences brought to bear upon his young life. American republicanism has relieved the child of foreign parentage from the somewhat despotic discipline of the Old World, but it has not always, even in New England, provided much to take its place.

It is a notorious fact that the children of Irish parents are a turbulent, disturbing growth in our civilization, if we call a social condition by the name of civilization which is very inadequate to produce the best results in all its component parts. In manufacturing towns, employers might do much to elevate their work people, if they would recognize a moral tie as existing between the two classes bound by the business relation. Manufacturers, also, would do wisely to remember that semi-barbarism is very dangerous when dowered with the power and freedom of democracy. If conscience will not induce the providing of time and means for more education of the ignorant among us, it may be well that danger stands ready to be itself the safeguard of the republic it threatens, since fear may supplement the tardy moral senses of the rich and rouse them to the necessary action to secure the enlightenment of the poor.

Andrew spent the days of his youth in the mill, his evenings in the street and in saloons, his nights in the filthy air of crowded tenements, while the Sundays were passed in playing games of base-ball, or attending cock-fights. The Protestant churches where he lived did not greatly concern themselves about the young Irishman’s spiritual welfare. He would have stood more chance of receiving some religious training had he been a Catholic, under the unsleeping watch of Rome.

Andrew had come to Newbridge a little more than a year before this February evening. Joe’s family were then living there. Joe’s half-sister, poor little Annie, toiling day after day, with scarce a single girlish hope or pleasure, had almost immediately fallen in love, with Andrew. It was a genuine love though probably a feeble one, as the pitiful creature had hardly vitality enough for a strong emotion. He had been amused with the tribute of silly affection laid at his feet, and although the girl was neither pretty nor winning he had been moved, occasionally, when passing her in the mill entries, to give her a rude kiss, or a jocular clutch of the arm, which he intended as a caress. Joe had noted these evidences of intimacy, and had told of them as a joke. Andrew, hearing of this tale-bearing, had fallen upon Joe in the street, and beaten him violently. The matter came at last to the ears of the French stepfather, who was honestly fond of Annie, and who swore he would have no “ fooling” round the girl. “S’e be silly,” he said, “but s’e no be bad. He s’all marry or he s’all quit.”

There was a dance in one of the tenements the night after old Huckleberry made this declaration. Dances in the houses were forbidden, but the “ Company’s ” rule was often evaded. The festivity began at ten, and lasted till dawn. It was a rude, bacchanalian affair, and by morning Annie’s step-father had extorted from Andrew, who was then half drunk, a promise that he would marry Annie the next day. The promise was fulfilled, though the bridegroom was perfectly sober when the ceremony took place. A little genuine pity for Annie urged Andrew to this step, but the act also pleased him because he felt that he thus defied his own past, and asserted his complete independence of it. The wedding was celebrated according to Catholic rites. Soon afterwards the Huckleberrys moved away from the village.

Andrew, after his marriage, went to work in a neighboring town. Annie stayed at her place in Mr. Justice’s mill.

Soon came a strike in the factory where Andrew was employed. He joined in it, and for some months Annie supported them both. Fortunately the strike concluded, and Andrew went to work again in time to allow Annie to leave the mill a few weeks before her baby was born. Then they set up housekeeping, and Andrew changed work again and went into Mr. Justice’s mill. They sent for Annie’s mother to come and keep house and care for the baby, when Annie went back to the factory. The French father was expected to support his own children, and they hoped to get rid of Joe; but Huckleberry had thus far done very little towards maintaining his part of the family, Joe had come back, Annie had been unable to work much, and Andrew, owing to her illness and his own long idleness during the strike, was heavily in debt.

On all these things the young man moodily pondered, as he walked slowly down the street, after his interview with Miss Justice. He thought also of something else, — something which seemed to rise like a real substance before his eyes, till, as he came into the light of a lamp-post that guarded the bridge over the river, he scarcely started as he saw his thought embodied before him. He stopped, staring at a woman, who stared boldly back as soon as she saw him. She was young and handsome, with curly reddish-brown hair, gray eyes, and rosy gleams in her transparent skin. She held in her hands a milliner’s box. Her dress was decent, though a little tawdry. Andrew grew white as lie looked at her.

“ How came you here, Nell ? ”

“ How came you here ? ” retorted she.

“ Well, I was n’t lookin’ for you,” said the man.

“ Nor I for you,” answered the woman. “ I was n’t pining for a sight of you, when I come to Newbridge.”

“It was just a happen, then ?” asked he, a little uneasily.

“Just a happen,” said she. “ An’ now, I tell you what: you just let me alone, an’ I ’ll let you alone. I’m not proud enough of you to want folks to know you ’re my husband.”

Andrew started, and looked into the darkness surrounding the lighted spot where they stood, as though he would search out some possible listener. “ No, for God’s sake, Nell, don’t tell! ” he cried, in a low tone.

“ Eh,” said she. “ Why not ? It’s no such uncommon thing for a drunken brute to beat his wife as I need be ashamed to tell of it. The only uncommon thing in our doin’s, as near as I can make out, was that I would n’t stand it, as most Irishwomen do. I was reared too much like a Yankee, I guess.”

As she spoke, her face and figure were defined in strong light and shade, with the dark river as a background. Andrew, who had never loved that palefaced Annie, who Waited for him with her child a few rods away, felt this woman’s beauty pierce his heart like a knife.

“ You know, Nell,” he said, “ I did n’t mean no harm. You should n’t mind what a man does when he’s drunk, an’ don’t know what he’s doin’.”

“ Drunk or sober,” said Nell, “ it hurts when a man beats you. It hurts deeper than the skin, too.”

“ You struck back,” said Andrew, “ or I would n’t have hit so hard. It madded me.”

“ It madded me ! ” said she savagely. “ An’ just you remember till you die, Andrew Moore, that I’ve struck you in the face. Now le’ me go.”

He caught her arm. “ Where be you a-goin’, Nell, at this time o’ night ? ”

She laughed at bis suspicion. “ You fool,” she said, “ I’m goin’ up to Miss Justice’s, to take a bonnet to one of her girls.”

“ I don’t believe you. It’s too late.”

“ No, it ain’t,” she said, snappishly. “ She only ordered it this evenin’, ’cause she’s goin’ early to-morrow mornin’ to Blacks tone, to see her mother, who’s sick.”

“ Did you ever see Miss Justice ? ”

“ No ; what of her ? ”

“ Nothing ; only I hate her. Where do you live ? ” he added, after a minute.

“ Oh, don’t you wish you knew ? ”

“ Well, I ’ll tell you where you work,” said he. “ You ’re the new girl in Mis’ Carey’s shop.”

“ Who told you there was a new girl there ?”

Andrew made no answer, for it was Annie who had told him. Nell waited a little while, and looked at him keenly.

“ Who told you ? Some girl, likely. Well, take care what you do.”

“ Take care yourself,” he said, angrily. “If you don’t behave yourself, I ’ll take your wages.”

This frightened Nell, as she thought she had heard that a husband could possess himself of his wife’s earnings ; but Andrew knew, even while he spoke, that his threat was made in aimless rage, since he had far more to fear than she, if he announced himself as her husband. Each faced the other with distrust, and then Nell said defiantly, —

“ I dare you to lay a finger on my money, and don’t you never speak to me again, night nor day. I’ve had enough of you.”

She started up the road along the river bank. Andrew watched her, and a low groan escaped his lips as she vanished in the shadows of the pines that overhung the stream. Then he said aloud to himself, —•

“ I ain’t a Catholic; I don’t believe in them popish ceremonies.” He paused, and then added, “ But, good God, how shall I make sure she don’t hear about Annie ? ”

He went home at length. The family lived in a basement tenement; that is, the house was built on a slope, and the rooms they occupied were level with the ground in front, but in the back came up against the bank. The Huckleberry family had also an attic room, where Joe slept. Andrew and Annie had a small room to the right of the kitchen. Huckleberry and his wife had one at the left, and beds were made up at night upon the kitchen floor for the younger children. All the windows were fastened down, as Huckleberry hated a breath of fresh air. Much bad odor was thus kept in, and much was kept out; for these rooms faced a lane which was used as a back yard for a row of houses similar to this, and heavy and vile was the air that clung to the unsavory ground. The tenants of the houses were ignorant, and did not avoid practices which increased the filth of their surroundings. The Company, of which Mr. Justice was a chief member, took some pains to disinfect and cleanse the lane, but the pains were not sufficient to effect the purpose. Ignorance was at the root of this, as of most other evils: the people were too ignorant to be clean ; the owners were to a great extent ignorant of the uncleanliness of the people.

As Andrew entered the outside door, which opened directly into the kitchen, and looked into the dismal interior he thought, “ What a bright kitchen Nell kept! She is my wife. A man has a right — it’s his duty to live with his wife.”

The mother sat with Joe crouched on the floor beside her. The light of the kerosene lamp fell full on the boy’s sleepy, stupid face. He shrank into the shadow as Andrew came in. Annie rose from another corner of the room, laid her baby in its cradle, and came forward to meet her scowling husband, saying,—

“ Andrew, I’ve made griddle cakes for you. Don’t you want some ? You did not eat much supper.”

His eyes softened as they fell on the puny creature, and he said gently, “ Yes, I 'll eat ’em ; but you’d better go to bed. You ’re not strong enough to set up late an’ go to work early, too.”

Pale little Annie smiled faintly in answer to the kindly tone. She had a forehead so high and peaked that it was almost deformed. Her skin was unhealthy, but her features were small and well shaped, and her smile was sweet, pathetic, and helpless. She did not know how pitiful she looked, not having brains enough to contrast herself with other girls. She was used to hardship, to dull pain, and she seldom felt and never expressed vivid sensations. She was pleased by Andrew’s kindness, glad when he asked her how the baby was, but not very pleased or very glad. Her side ached, and she had no faculty for a pleasure that would overcome the sense of that pain.

There was no joyousness in that household, where care, anxiety, and ignorance dominated every mood. Andrew’s heart, capable of fiercer passions, was heavy in this dull atmosphere. He ate the cakes that Annie’s tired hands had made for him, and watched the girl furtively as she took up the baby and fed it from a bottle. He was thinking,

“ How shall I keep Nell from hearing about her ? ”

Theodora, ignorant of the new factor which Nell’s appearance had brought into what she termed the “ Joe problem,” spent the next day looking for a place suitable for the boy. She told her father about the family, and he commented a little sadly,—

“ It is a fact, my dear, that among factory operatives families seldom attain to assured comfort, unless they are exceptionally fortunate in matters which they cannot themselves control, such as birth, death, and health, or unless they are so exceptionally gifted with prudence and virtue that they have a genius for poverty. The ordinary mill hand who marries another ordinary mill hand, who has numerous children, with frequent doctors’ bills to pay, — excuse me, Margaret ! — and who often loses work from one cause or another, struggles against odds which are beyond the powers of common men and women to overcome. This family is probably made of miserable stuff morally, but one such member as that boy would prove in most operative families the decisive ounce to turn the scale of fortune against them.”

“ Then we get more than our share, and they get less than theirs, out of the mill,” said Theodora warmly.

“It would seem so,” said her father ; “ but it is all according to the laws of trade.”

“ Oh,” cried she, “ if eternal justice is anywhere, it must he everywhere! I do not know,” she continued, “ that one has a moral right to use against a poor man the full brute power of wealth any more than he has to use against a weak man the full brute force of physical strength.”

“ Nor,” said Margaret, “ do I believe it a wise policy.”

“ I agree with you in my heart,” replied Mr. Justice; “ yet, look at history. Everywhere the weak man goes to the wall. Everywhere the strong man steps forward, with his foot upon his feeble brother’s corpse. The great races flourish and civilization grows — or seems, at least, to grow — because through unnumbered throes of agony, silent, helpless, unutterably pathetic, the weak races fall, and die where they fall, and their blood enriches the soil from which our glories spring.”

“ No, no ! ” cried Theodora, like one in pain. “ It cannot be that it is better for the world that men should be cruel and selfish than it would be for them to be kind and helpful.”

“ But look,” responded her father ; “ there seems to be no other way for nations to advance.”

“ Where is God, then ? ” asked his daughter.

“ Perhaps,” Margaret’s quiet voice suggested, “ it is evolution ; and I am not sure but it will prove as easy to find God in evolution as in Calvinism.”

“ Our nation,” said Mr. Justice, “ is built on the Indian’s grave ; and yet, so far as we can judge, we are a people, notwithstanding all our crimes, better worth having in the world than the Indian, if only one of the two races can survive.”

“ Yes,” said Margaret; “ but we should have been of more value still had we been noble enough to live with the Indian, and civilize instead of butchering him.”

“ I think we are the savages,” sighed Theodora.

“ Then,” replied her father, “ if savages must fight, I don’t know that it impugns God’s moral intention that he allows the nobler people to conquer ; since, after a time, ashamed of its own barbarity, the victorious race may so far civilize itself that it may evolve the virtue of consideration for the weak, too line a flower of civilization to be its first blossom.”

“ In other words,” added Margaret, “ of the two barbarians, the white and the red, victory is granted to the white, because, in spite of his crimes, he is likely to learn to care for the Indian sooner than the Indian, if victorious, would learn to care for him.”

“ But the factory,” urged Theodora. “ We must not comfortably forget our own sins, while discussing the nation’s.”

“ It is much the same thing,” said Mr. Justice.

“All moral questions are own cousins,” observed Margaret.

“ There may be better systems than ours,” continued Mr. Justice ; “ but no manufacturer yet dares use other methods. We are afraid to risk the terrible strain of commercial crises with a new policy. And we are ambitious ; the greed of success has seized our souls. It is not wealth merely that we want; we desire to be greatly successful in the pursuit we have chosen. That passion is the moral bane of the business man.”

Margaret spoke slowly: “ Drink causes most of the pauperism of the operatives.”

“ Yes,” assented Mr. Justice frankly ; “ but it is their poverty that makes them drink.”

This was a new idea to Theodora, and, pondering on it, she said no more. She wondered also at her father. Had he been thinking all his life of these problems which now vexed her young mind for the first time ? The truth was that Mr. Justice had a sensitive rather than a strong moral nature. He lacked the believing heart necessary to combat evil persistently. He saw objections to any proposed social remedy as plainly as he perceived arguments in favor thereof. Perhaps his mind had not the finer quality which could compare accurately, and see which side of a moral question was the more deserving, when both sides merited great consideration. Pained and disheartened by the misery he encountered in the world, and sure of no cure, he had sought to save himself from suffering by avoiding direct contact with the troubles of the poor. He prosecuted his business, and endeavored to convince himself that, as he could not wholly relieve his operatives from privation, he was not responsible for any of their misfortunes. He had tried also to escape self-condemnation by reflecting that it would not be well to ward all trouble from any people, and would not allow his mind to dwell on the difference between a course of action tending to reduce a class to the condition of helpless dependents and one which would stimulate manly self-help, while giving encouragement, assistance, and removing unnecessary burdens. Mr. Justice’s ideals were high, but they mocked his indolence and selfish ambition from afar. He had not even tried to reach up to them, but through all the years, undesired convictions settled in his heart and claimed a place there.

All night after meeting Nell, and all the next morning at his work, Andrew Moore was haunted by the memory of a fair, scornful face, and by the fear of punishment for his crime. The lightest allusion to him in Nell’s presence, he realized, might lead to the mention of his marriage to Annie, and at that thought he trembled. At noon he took his way toward Mrs. Carey’s shop, and by watching and following he ascertained that Nell’s walk to her boardingplace led her through the woods. He scrambled through the underbrush, and intercepted her. She greeted him rather rudely as he approached. He talked with her a few minutes, and became convinced that thus far she had told no one of their relation, and had heard nothing of Annie. This comforted him for the moment, but when he returned to the mill, that afternoon, his terror came back. He felt that he must decide to do something at once. That evening he met Nell again.

“ I ’ve told you over ’n’ over,” she said, “ that I did n’t want to have nothin’ to do with you.”

“ But I can’t let you alone,” said Andrew ; “ and I won’t, neither.”

She looked at him curiously. “ I declare,” said she, “ I believe you are soft on me still. Thank you, but I have n’t no inclination that way.”

She went by him, upon this, holding her graceful head very erect. She felt pleased and proud. She had had admiration from many men, but to have her own husband violently in love with her was an experience so unlike what seemed to befall most women that it elated her greatly, and dimmed the memory of the drunken rage in which he had beaten her, two years before.

That evening, Annie sat patiently beside the kitchen fire, rocking her baby in her lap.

“ I wonder why Andrew don’t come home,” said Mrs. Huckleberry.

Joe spoke up, with his mouth full of baked potato: —

“ The last I seen of him, be was up in the woods, gabbin’ with that new gal that works in Mis’ Carey’s.”

Annie said not a word, and when Andrew finally came she only followed his motions with disquieted eyes. She never thought even of asking him anything about the girl.

The next forenoon, Andrew went boldly to Mrs. Carey’s store. The mistress herself came forward to meet him. Nell sat in the rear of the room, herself half hidden by a curtain, but she saw him very plainly. All night his desire to see her face again had been greater even than his fear of the law which he had broken. Her image had come between him and Annie when he had tried to look at the mother of his child. Joe had refused to go up to his attic to sleep, and then had had a fit in the kitchen, waking everybody at midnight. The baby had cried, and Annie had toiled over it for hours. Andrew had helped her a little, but most of the time he had lain still, watching her, listening to the screams of the child, to Joe’s hideous noises, to the chatter and cries of the other children, — thinking all the time of Nell. He pitied Annie still, but he had begun to pity himself more ; and also he had called in his conscience to help him to the decision that it was his duty to return to his first marriage vows.

As Andrew talked with Mrs. Carey, Nell said to herself, “ That is my husband, and there he stands like any stranger ! ”

In a moment Mrs. Carey called out, “ Nell, bring me a chair ! ”

“ There’s one there,” said Nell, in a reluctant voice.

“ It’s rickety,” answered the shopwoman. “ I don’t dare trust my weight to it, and I want to reach the upper shelf. Come yourself.”

Nell came out from behind the dark curtain that shut off the back part of the shop. She stood still, waiting for her mistress to pass out from behind the counter. A light from above struck her auburn hair, and turned some floating curly rings to gold. When the older woman had bustled by her, Nell came slowly down the store, looking at the dark, passionate man before her as if he were empty space. She sprang on the tottering chair, reached up lightly, and took from the shelf a box. Andrew’s senses were smitten with pain as he marked her strong, graceful motions. She stepped down, put the box on the counter, opened it, and carelessly displayed its contents. He dared not meet her eyes, and bent his face downward. His head was handsome, and Nell suddenly noticed that his shoulders were shapely. Accidentally, his hand touched hers. He started violently. She looked at him with cool surprise, and their eyes met in one long gaze. Then he turned his glance away again. Instantly, Nell’s mood changed. The unconscious loyalty of her nature asserted itself. She felt the bond so hard to break, though it is not always made of love or even of passion, which holds a woman to a man whose wife she once has been. Her lips began to tremble.

“ He might say one kind word,” she thought.

After a moment, as he did not speak, she turned to fiy from him. 1 Te reached across the counter and held her. She bent her eyes with a hunted, beseeching look upon him.

“ Let me go,” she breathed.

“ No. My God,” he cried, in a low voice, “ I love you, Nell, better ’n my life ! Meet me to-night at five at the station, ’n’ we’ll go back to Fall River together, ’n’ not tell nobody here, but we ’ll begin again, all new, there. Bring what money you have. Don’t be afraid to trust me. I ’ll be your best friend. We won’t tell nobody here, because it would just make talk, if folks knew we ’d been married all this time. Will you come ? Nell, you must come.”

“ I’ll — see,” said Nell slowly, but Andrew detected a yielding tone in her voice.

“ Well, don’t say nothin’,” he said. “ Only come, for the love of old times, an’ better times than you ever knew.”

Here Mrs. Carey reappeared, and Andrew hurried out of the store. His head was dizzy, and he stumbled over Joe, who sat upon the steps. Moore gave the boy a savage kick, and Joe raised his bleared eyes, and angrily watched his brother-in-law walk away.

“ I ’ll fix him,” muttered the lad.

Nell, meanwhile, stood alone in the shop, for Mrs. Carey had followed Andrew out. The girl felt very uncertain what to do. She had never loved Andrew very much, even when she married him, but now her heart yearned towards him somewhat. Stronger still was the impulse of loyalty. Her nature was more true than she wanted it to be. She had wayward, rebellious desires, and she tried to follow them, but she could not long disregard any obligation. She did not understand the turmoil in her mind. She only knew that Andrew, as his steps died away in the distance, seemed drawing her after him.

Joe pushed open the door, and shambled in. He stopped before Nell, and stared coarsely at her.

“Well,” she cried at last, “would you know me again in a crowd ? ”

“ Who be you ? ” said Joe.

“ Who be I ? Who be you ?”

“ I’m Joe,” said he. “ I’m Annie’s brother, ’n’ you ’d better look out wot you do, or I ’ll have you took up. I’d like to git him took up,” he added, with a chuckle.

“ Who’s Annie ? ” asked Nell.

Joe grinned sarcastically. “ As ef you didn’t know ! ” he said disdainfully.

“ Well, I don’t know, an’ I don’t care, neither,” said she, turning from him.

But Joe followed her. “ Don’t you know ? ” he asked earnestly.

“ No, I don’t.”

He studied her face. “ Mebbe,” he said at last, “ he’s playin’ a game on you! I seen him an’ you gabbin’ together lots o’ times. Mebbe he is! Will you help me pay him up ?”

“ Tell me what you mean,” resumed Nell, in a steady voice. “ Who is Annie ? ”

“ She’s my sister,” said the boy slowly. “ She’s his wife.”

“ Whose wife ? ”

“ His’n, — Andrew Moore’s.”

“ You lie ! ”

“ No, I don’t,” said Joe; but as he spoke he backed towards the door.

“ Stop ! ” cried she. “ Before God, I did n’t know nothin’ of this.” Her breast heaved, and the words came hard from her lips. “ Tell me, where does this Annie live ? ”

But Joe was frightened out of his plan of making her his accomplice in some scheme of vengeance upon Andrew, and he answered promptly, “ I sha’n’t tell ye.”

“ Oh, I won't hurt her. I ’ll — be a friend to her. Has she been married long ? ”

“ None o’ yer business.”

“ Oh, yes, it is,” panted Nell. “ Do tell me. Andrew Moore has played me a worse trick as ever he played her.”

She entreated, she stormed, but Joe fled before her passion, and told her no more. Left alone, she steadied her head with her hands, and sat down on the floor. This, then, was the reason for Andrew’s urgent desire to keep their former relations private. “ He has a wife here,” she said to herself, “ an’ he wanted to clear out with me, ’n’ not let her know. Then,” she added slowly, “ he liked me best! ”

III.

Annie came home from her work early that noon. She was ill, and told her mother that she had fainted in the mill. She sat down, looking very white, and took up her baby.

“ I seen Andrew into Mis’ Carey’s, talkin’ with that gal ag’in, this mornin’,” said Joe, leering up at her from his seat on the floor. “ Ef I was big enough, I’d lick him,—pay him for some o’ the lickin’s he’s gin me. She said she did n’t know nothin’ about his havin’ a wife here. Took on like blazes about it.”

The mother plied Joe with angry questions, but the boy rose and slouched out without further speech. Annie simply said, after a long pause, “ I guess Miss Justice ain’t goin’ to do nothin’ about takin’ Joe away, after all.”

In a few minutes Andrew came in. As he entered the kitchen, Annie’s pale face shone like a white gleam in the dark, dingy room, and his heart contracted with pain and something like tenderness, He sat down by the table, and thought how unlucky it was that he was so “soft-hearted.” He could not look forward to possessing Nell without the shadow of Annie’s suffering falling across his joy.

Mrs. Huckleberry set out Andrew’s dinner sullenly, and he ate it silently. After a few minutes, Annie came and waited on him. Once, as she passed him, she laid her fingers very lightly on his shoulder. He bent his head low over his plate.

“ Set down,” said the mother gruffly. “ You’re not fit to be waitin’ on him. Sick yersel’.”

Andrew looked up to see Annie stagger as she tried to lift a kettle from the stove. He sprang forward, caught her in his arms, carried her into their room, and laid her on the bed. He leaned over her, and she saw tears in his eyes. She raised her hand feebly to touch him. He turned away. “ Don’t go back to work again to-day,” he said, and went out of the house, meaning never to enter it again. He groaned aloud as he closed the door. Just then he saw into his own heart, and knew how cruel and selfish it was. But in a few minutes he lifted his head, squared his shoulders, and tried to smile, saying to himself,—

“Now, there’s lots of fellers would n’t think nothin’ of leavin’ a girl like that. I ain’t half so bad as them. An’ if Nell ’n’ me get on pretty well, I guess I can send Annie some money before long, an’ may be I can come an’ see her once in a while.”

That afternoon Annie sat alone in the kitchen, with the baby on her lap. Her mother had gone to do a neighbor’s washing. The girl felt very ill, and her heart was even heavier than usual. She sang softly to the baby, and the song sounded like a long, low moan. She heard steps on the frozen ground outside, and looked up to see a face at the window. It vanished, and an instant later the door opened ; a woman came in with a firm step, and walked across the room to Annie.

The girl recognized her with a sinking heart: it was the woman Joe had seen with Andrew. Silently the two looked at each other. A faint angry color rose in Annie’s cheek, but Nell’s face did not change, till she glanced down at the baby, when her eyes grew dark with a meaning Annie could never have fathomed.

“ That is my husband’s child,” Nell thought, “ and it is not mine.” Aloud, she said, “ That is your baby ? ”

“Yes,” said Annie; still Nell stood and looked at it. “ What do you want ? ” faltered the mother, finally.

Nell started, as from a dream, and then laughed slightly, but unquietly. “ I wanted to see it and you,” she said. “ Don’t you never worry for fear o’ my doin’ you any harm. I never knew Andrew was married — to you, till that boy — Huckleberry Joe, they call him — told me so to-day. You see, I used to know Andrew, years ago, when we was young — an’ I — was silly. That’s all. But I thought may be folks might be tell in’ you stories as would trouble you. Don’t listen to nothin’ of the sort. I’m goin’ away to-night. If Andrew ever treats you bad, you send for me. Mis’ Carey ’ll know where I am. She’s my cousin. Good-by.” Annie, bewildered, stared at her visitor. Nell paused, and then said, “ When I’m clean gone, Andrew will never think o’ me again. I know him. So that ’ll be all right. I ’d like to take the baby a minute.”

She stooped, lifted the child in strong, tender arms, carried it to the window, gazed wistfully at its tiny face, touched her lips lightly to the puny cheek, then brought it back to the young mother, smiled a rare, sweet smile, and passed out into the frosty air.

“Oh,” moaned Annie, “how pretty she is! ”

IV.

Andrew Moore left the station, where he had waited in vain for Nell, and took the path through the woods to Mrs. Carey’s house. The sun was sinking in the west, and showed like a red fire through the pines. As he turned a curve in the path, he saw a woman walking in the rich light, a little distance before him. He ran till he reached her.

“ Why did n’t you come ? ” he cried.

“ I had other business. I went to see your other wife.”

“ Oh ! ” he groaned.

Nell faced him defiantly. “Yes,” she said. “ An’ I told her as you an’ I was old acquaintances, an’ nothin’ more ; an’ now I tell you that I’m goin’ away from here, — but not with you. So my advice to you is to make it up with Annie, and be good to her.”

“ Annie is no wife of mine,” he said doggedly, “ and you are. If you were a decent woman, you’d go with me.”

Nell’s eyes blazed. “ Jest stop that,” she said, in a trembling voice. “I won’t be insulted. I married you fair an’ square ; so did she. What you’ve done has set me free, but has bound you to her. I ’ll get a bill, an’ you can marry her over again, if you’ve got scruples about the first time.”

The man begged and entreated. He threw himself upon the ground at her feet. He wound his arms about her knees and pulled her down towards him.

“ I could n’t ! ” she cried, struggling. Then she looked into his upturned face. “ Since I saw that girl’s baby,” she said, “I could n’t like you if I tried; and I would n’t live with you if I did like you.”

His eyes fell, his head drooped, but still he clung to her, and as she moved she dragged him along the frosty ground, while the red sun sank out of sight between the forest stems, and a darkness fell upon the two. He lifted up his face once more to hers, but her heart only grew still and cold at the sight. Afterward, after many days, alone in her chamber, she often cried and shuddered, and her heart ached, remembering that dark, despairing face, with the unearthly glow upon it from the wintry twilight heaven above.

“ It’s hell,” he cried, “you ’re leavin’ me to ! Don’t you see what that family are? They ’ll keep me poor an’ wretched all my life. It’s hell with them. It’s hell without you. . And I love you, Nell, — oh, my God, how I love you ! ”

“ Make heaven out of your hell,” she said. “ I must.”

He could not comprehend her, but his arms fell to the ground. He no longer dared touch her. She stood free, but now that she was free she felt that she could not leave him thus.

“ Why did you marry her ? ” she asked sternly, as he crouched at her feet.

For a moment there was no answer; then he said, “I was mad with you, and” —he hesitated again — “ when old Huckleberry teased me to marry her I pitied her. I was soft-hearted. I could n’t leave a girl, like other fellers do. It was all her fault.”

“ Now,” said Nell, “you’ve said the meanest thing a man can say, an’ what a man always does say when he’s ruined a girl. Just you mind : if you treat her badly, I ’ll have you arrested for bigamy.”

Her indignation restored her strength, and she left him, not once looking back to see him, lying there on the earth.

Annie’s husband went back to her that evening, but he found no peace for his alarmed soul. He reflected that he was entirely in Nell’s power, and that at any moment, should she be seized with a revengeful impulse, she could cause his arrest. He knew that she had left the village on the evening of that fateful day, but he knew not whither she had gone. Sometimes he thought he would seek her out, and try once more to win her ; but he was afraid to face again those wrathful, accusing eyes. His present life grew more irksome to him. He ceased to feel any tenderness for Annie, and the child irritated him. His conscience was drowned in a flood of fear and self-pity. After a day or two of this sort of torment, he made up his mind to leave the place, and “ tramp ” his way to some distant part of the country, out of the reach of Nell’s possible vengeance. So there came a night when Annie waited in vain for the father of her child. The next forenoon the neighbors told the young mother that on the day before he was seen going out of the village on the train.

That afternoon, Theodora Justice stood at the door of the basement where Joe’s family lived. She had found a farmer who, for a consideration, which in her new-born zeal she intended secretly to furnish, had promised to take Joe and try to teach him farm work.

Miss Justice looked at the row of dark, damp tenements, and her gray eyes grew thoughtful. She entered the dingy, ill-odorous kitchen, and her heart felt heavy. The women within were slightly clad. Her own garments were warm and rich. Was she clothed from the rents paid for these wretched rooms ? She told her errand, and received in return an account of all the occurrences of the past few days.

“ Annie won’t believe,” said the mother, “ that that girl has gone off with Andrew, but I know she has.”

“ Had you had trouble with your husband before ? ” asked Miss Justice.

“ No, miss, we never had no trouble.”

“He was a good husband, then?”

The mother made answer, “ Oh, he wa’n’t none of the best, nor none of the worst.”

Miss Justice could not understand why these women showed so little emotion as they talked of these things. Their voices were simply dreary and hopeless, though Annie’s eyes were red from weeping.

“ I ’ll have to do something with my baby,” said the deserted girl. “ I can’t take care of it, an’ work in the mill ; an’ if I could put it somewheres, mother could go out washin’ a good deal.”

“ If Joe goes,” said the elder woman, “ we could get on pretty well, if it wa’n’t for the baby.”

“ But how can you bear to send your baby away ? ” cried Theodora.

“ Well,” said Annie, “ it would be hard, for I think it is getting real cunning. If I’d known how things was to be, I’d ha’ tried to send it off when it was first born. Then I should n’t ha’ cared.”

She bent over the child a little wistfully. When she raised her eyes, she met Theodora’s puzzled, compassionate glance. So these two gazed at each other, — both women, both creatures who had suffered, both daughters of the factory ; but how differently had the factory dealt with them !

Theodora put out her hand, and lightly touched Annie’s shoulder. “ My poor child,” she said, “ stay at home for a few days and rest, and take care of the baby, and we will see what can be done for you.”

“ I have to stay at home,” answered Annie, simply. “ I’m so sick, I can’t work now, but I 'll be better in a day or two.”

“Indeed,” said the mother, “Annie ain’t fit to work. She’s been to the mill many a mornin’ when she was too sick to hold up her head; but poor folks can’t stop to mind such things.”

“ What is the matter ? ” asked Theodora.

“ I have a pain in my side,” said Annie. “It’s standin’ so much does it.”

“ Do you stand all the time you work ? ”

“ Yes.”

“ Have you no time to sit?”

“ Not much ; an’ we hain’t no chairs, an’ the overseer won’t let us sit on the floor.”

“ You could sit down, now and then, if you had chairs ? ”

“Yes. There used to be chairs, but they is all broke.”

Theodora drew a deep breath. It was only through negligence, she was sure, that new chairs had not been provided; but this young mother, whose rest was broken all night, must suffer all day from such oversight.

“ Well,” thought the lady, “ I don’t know but it is worth while to live just to remedy such neglect.”

She left the girl sorrowfully, and went straight to Mrs. Carey, to learn what she could about Andrew and Nell. Mrs. Carey, although her cousin, had known nothing about Nell till she came to the village, a few weeks previously. She did not even know then that the girl had been married, and nothing had roused her suspicion, since Nell’s maiden name had also been Moore. After her final interview with Andrew the young wife had confided her story to Mrs. Carey, and charged her to watch what happened to Annie, but on no account to reveal to any one the fact of her own marriage. Consequently, when Miss Justice questioned the milliner, all she received in reply was Mrs. Carey’s assertion that Nell was not with Andrew, and that she did not know where he was. Theodora was not wholly inclined to believe her statements, especially as the woman refused to tell where Nell had gone. Such clumsy manœuvres and palpable mysteries would probably soon have resulted of themselves in a complete enlightenment of the whole affair, had not a higher power taken the matter into its own hands, and arranged all things according to some deeper sense of fitness.

That very evening Margaret came to Miss Justice. “ I have been,” she said, “ to see Annie Moore. She is very ill, and needs a competent nurse.”

“ Hire one, and I will pay her,” said Theodora.

“ What is the matter ? ” asked Mr. Justice, looking up from the Tribune.

Margaret briefly stated the case. ‘‘ In her exhausted condition,” said she, “ it is a serious matter. She has worked when she should have been in bed. I doubt if she lives through the night.”

Theodora drew a long sobbing breath. Mr. Justice ordered out the coachman, sent for medicines, nurse, everything that could be needed, and himself walked with Margaret and Theodora down to the house where the sick girl lived. He paused at the door, while the women went in.

“ These tenements are abominable,” he thought. “ It’s a dozen years since I have been in this part of the village and seen them. Theodora shall have her way, and shut them up.”

In a moment, his daughter came out to him. She put her hands on his shoulders, and looked in his handsome eyes, so like her own.

“ Father,” said she, “ I shall stay here to-night.”

“Very well,” he answered, kissing her.

Theodora was useful that night, for the nurse for whom they sent could not come, and she, under Margaret’s directions, with the mother’s assistance, took charge of Annie. Mr. Justice returned at midnight, to see if he could be of any service. His servants came and went all night on errands. Margaret had another patient in a critical condition, and was forced to be away part of the time, but no braver battle with death was fought that night over the couch of any lady in the land than that struggle to save this poor Annie, who had been so little heeded till she lay dying.

It was a strange scene, that dimly lighted, squalid room, with the white face upon the pillow, and the pale, lovely lady sitting by the bed. Old Huckleberry roamed restlessly in and out, and looked at his step-daughter’s quiet face. The mother, when otherwise unoccupied, sat at the foot of the bed and tended Annie’s baby. The small children were asleep on the kitchen floor, but Joe crouched in a corner of Annie’s room, and watched his sister with a look of only half-human suffering in his eyes. Little as Annie had cared for him, she had always been gentle to him, and he felt something like affection and sorrow now, and was stupefied by a sensation of so high an order.

Although much of the time Annie required attention, there were long quiet intervals, when Theodora had nothing to do but think of these factory people, who seemed to have some claim upon her, which hitherto she had not recognized. Her heart began to go out to them, just because many of them were sick and sorry, and needed her. She felt that it would not be hard to labor for them, because she would love them. Once, when Annie moaned, Theodora bent over her, with lips that trembled a little.

“ Poor baby,” murmured the dying girl.

“ Don’t be troubled,” said Theodora. “ I will see that it is well taken care of.”

They waked Annie’s little brothers, who came into the room, half asleep, and climbed on the bed to kiss their sister. They laid her baby’s silent mouth to hers. Huckleberry wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, and went for the priest. The room was hushed. The mother knelt beside her daughter. A woman came from the upper part of the house, and, kneeling, with a candle in her hand, read prayers in a mumbling voice. Annie stirred uneasily,and asked, “ Where’s Joe ? ”

Theodora repeated the faint whisper aloud, and the boy started from a light slumber, and came to the bed.

“ Good-by,” said Annie. “ You never meant no harm in anything, I know.”

Joe slunk back, and sobbed in his corner on the door. Annie never spoke again. Through it all she had never mentioned Andrew ; but when she lay dead in the morning light, her little face, scarce whiter than in life, was still sad.

Theodora took the baby home to keep until she could find a suitable person to care for it. It was a puny creature, and when Margaret came to see it she said it was so feeble, and had been so drugged by its ignorant grandmother, that she doubted whether it could live. Theodora remembered then that the old woman had taken the baby into her own room a little while before Annie died, because of its crying, and that after she brought it back it had slept constantly. Full of unnecessary remorse lest she, by her inattention, had been partly to blame, Miss Justice spent most of the day, after her night-watch, tending the child. The little life, however, flickered and went out, and late that afternoon the tiny body was laid beside the mother’s. Living, she had not been a beautiful child, but in death she was lovely as a little angel carven in marble, — white, but blue-veined under the closed eyes. Theodora placed the fair head on Annie’s arm, and as she looked at these two, lying peacefully together, her heart swelled within her, and she turned away quickly to hide her tears.

As she left the house, a woman stopped her.

“You’re Miss Justice?” asked the stranger.

“ Yes.”

“Well,” said the other, “I’m Nell Moore.”

“ Oh ! Where is Andrew ? ”

“ I dunno,” said Nell.

“ You don’t ? ”

“ No. Oh, you need n’t think he went off with me. No, ma’am ! I ’m done with him. I married him fair enough.”

“ Married him ! ” cried Theodora.

“ Yes,” said Nell. “ It can’t do her no harm to tell now. I meant to see you an’ tell you, when I heard to-day how kind you’d been to her, for I wanted to show you I was an honest woman, fit to take care of a child. So I brought my certificate,” and Nell calmly produced the proof of her marriage, which Theodora scanned with astonished eyes. “ We quarreled,” went on Nell, “an’ separated, an’ he come here ; an’ he made believe marry that girl, — but she thought it was all right; an’ I did n’t know nothin’ about her, an’ when I found out it turned me against him more ’n all he’d done to me; an’ I pitied her, an’ I could n’t see as I could do anybody no good except by clearin’ out, an’ so I went. I’ve been stayin’ to Bordentown, with Mis’ Carey’s sister; an’ I heard he had left her, an’ that she was dead, poor thing, an’ so I come right over this afternoon, an’ thought I ’d speak to you about it.”

“ You and Andrew did not go away together! ”

“ Not much,” said Nell frankly. “ An’ I’m goin’ to get a bill from him. I won’t be bothered with him no longer. What I wanted to see you about was — that baby. There ’s nobody wants it, I s’pose, an’ I know Andrew well enough to know he won’t worry himself about it. So if you can manage that I can have it, an’ no fuss nor talk made, I’d take the best of care of it. I can earn enough to support it, an’ I’d be much obliged to you.”

Theodora stood amazed. ‘‘You would take that baby ? ” she said.

“ Yes,” said Nell. “ I’m fond of children, an’ I saw tins one once, and took a fancy to it.” She paused, grew rod, and then added hurriedly, “It might ha’ been mine, you know.”

Theodora choked, as she said in a low tone, “ The poor little baby is gone too, and will be buried with the mother to-morrow.”

Nell started. “Then Andrew is clear of all that,” she said, “and of me too. He can begin business all over again.” She laughed a little bitterly, as though some faint self-consciousness had come to her, which made her feel, in spite of all her outward show of decision, that it would not be as easy for her as it would have been for him to break through the meshes of the moral net in which her life was held. In a moment more, she said, “ Well, I’m sorry about the baby. It was a blessing for Annie to die. As for me, I ’ve got to make the best I can of living on.”

She turned to go, but Theodora touched her.

“Nell,” said she, “come and see me sometimes. Let me be your friend. Don’t go like that. I’ve known trouble, too.”

At the simple words, Nell’s eyes filled with sudden tears.

“ Thank you,” she said. “ I ’ll come to you once in a while, then. Good-by.”

Theodora saw that it would be no kindness to detain her, and stood still watching the lithe, handsome figure, till the gathering gloom of the winter evening wrapped it round and shrouded it from view. Then she turned her steps homeward, saying to her tired self, “ She is beyond my help, and Joe is left to

me.” S. A. L. E. M.