tless, an additional cause of sorrow to Mrs.
Phillips, whose stock card, "Furnished Lodgings for a Single Man," was
now displayed at the front window, making the house in that respect very
similar to half the houses in the street, or in this part of the town for
that matter. Yet with all this crowding and renting of rooms Mrs.
Phillips did not grow rich. She was always getting into debt or getting
out of it, this depending in inverse ratio upon Joe being in work or out.

When the rooms were all let they barely paid the rent and were always
getting empty. The five children--they had one dead and another
coming--ate so much and made so much work. There were boots and clothes and
groceries to pay for, not to mention bread. And though Joe was not like
many a woman's husband yet he did get on the spree occasionally, a little
fact which in the opinion of the pious will account for all Mrs.
Phillips' weariness and all the poverty of this crowded house. But
however that may be she was a weary hopeless faded woman, who would not
cause passers-by to turn, pity-stricken, and watch her when she hurried
along on her semi-occasional escapes from her prison-house only because
such women are so common that it is those who do not look hopeless and
weary whom we turn to watch if by some strange chance one passes. The
Phillips' kitchen was a cheerless place, in spite of the mirror that was
installed in state over the side-board and the wax flowers. Its one
window looked upon a diminutive back yard, a low broken wall and another
row of similar two-storied houses. On the plastered walls were some
shelves bearing a limited supply of crockery. Over the grated fireplace
was a long high shelf whereon stood various pots and bottles. There were
some chairs and a table and a Chinese-made safe. On the boarded floor was
a remnant of linoleum. Against one wall was a narrow staircase.

It was the breakfast things that Nellie had been helping to wash up. The
little American clock on the sideboard indicated quarter past nine.

Nellie went to the front door, opened it, and stood looking out. The view
was a limited one, a short narrow side street, blinded at one end by a
high bare stone wall, bounded at the other by the almost as narrow
by-thoroughfare this side street branched from. The houses in the
thoroughfare were three-storied, and a number wore used as shops of the
huckstering variety, mainly by Chinese. The houses in the side street
were two-stor