of the
daughter made their lot seem hard indeed.

"Wait a moment," he said; and, stepping into a back office, he
called the head housekeeper.

There was work to be done. The main staircase and parlor hall were
unswept because of the absence of the regular scrub-woman.

"Is that her daughter with her?" asked the housekeeper, who could
see them from where she was standing.

"Yes, I believe so."

"She might come this afternoon if she wants to. The girl helps her,
I suppose?"

"You go see the housekeeper," said the clerk, pleasantly, as he
came back to the desk. "Right through there"--pointing to a
near-by door. "She'll arrange with you about it."

A succession of misfortunes, of which this little scene might have
been called the tragic culmination, had taken place in the life and
family of William Gerhardt, a glass-blower by trade. Having suffered
the reverses so common in the lower walks of life, this man was forced
to see his wife, his six children, and himself dependent for the
necessaries of life upon whatever windfall of fortune the morning of
each recurring day might bring. He himself was sick in bed. His oldest
boy, Sebastian, or "Bass," as his associates transformed it, worked as
an apprentice to a local freight-car builder, but received only four
dollars a week. Genevieve, the oldest of the girls, was past eighteen,
but had not as yet been trained to any special work. The other
children, George, aged fourteen; Martha, twelve; William ten, and
Veronica, eight, were too young to do anything, and only made the
problem of existence the more complicated. Their one mainstay was the
home, which, barring a six-hundred-dollar mortgage, the father owned.
He had borrowed this money at a time when, having saved enough to buy
the house, he desired to add three rooms and a porch, and so make it
large enough for them to live in. A few years were still to run on the
mortgage, but times had been so bad that he had been forced to use up
not only the little he had saved to pay off the principal, but the
annual interest also. Gerhardt was helpless, and the consciousness of
his precarious situation--the doctor's bill, the interest due
upon the mortgage, together with the sums owed butcher and baker, who,
through knowing him to be absolutely honest, had trusted him until
they could trust no longer--all these perplexities weighed upon
his mind and racked him so nervously as to delay his recovery.

Mrs. Gerhardt was no weakli