Sarah low to Matilda.

"Any medicine, you mean?"

"No, Miss Matilda; nothing to eat, that he can eat."

"O David!" exclaimed Matilda, "let us go there. Where is it?"

David inquired again carefully about the sickness, to be sure that he
might take Matilda there; and then they went. Sarah volunteered to
guide them. But how shall I tell what they found. It was not far off, a
few blocks only; in one of a tall row of tenement houses, grim and
dismal, confronted by a like row on the other side of the street. Every
one like every other. But inside, Matilda only remembered how unlike it
was to all she had ever seen in her life before. Even Lilac lane was
pleasantness and comfort comparatively. The house was sound indeed;
there was no tumble-down condition of staircase or walls; the steps
were safe, as they mounted flight after flight. But the entries were
narrow and dirty; the stairways had _never_ seen water; the walls were
begrimed with the countless touches of countless dirty hands and with
the sweeping by of foul draperies. Instinctively Matilda drew her own
close round her. And as they went up and up, further from the street
door, the air grew more close and unbearable; heavy with vapours and
odours that had no chance at any time to feel the purification of a
draught of free air. Poor cookery, soapsuds, unclean humanity and
dirty still life, mingled their various smell in one heavy
undistinguishable oppression.

"Oh, why do people build houses so high!" said little Matilda, as she
toiled with her tired feet up the fourth staircase.

"For more rents, Miss Matilda," said Sarah who preceded them.

"For money!" said Matilda. "How tired the people must be that live
here."

"They don't go down often," Sarah remarked.

At the very top of the house they were at last. There, in the end of
the narrow entry-way, on the floor, was--what? A tumbled heap of dirty
clothes, Matilda thought at first, and was about to pass it to go to
the door which she supposed Sarah was making for; when Sarah stopped
and drew aside a piece of netting that was stretched there. And then
they saw, on the rags which served for his bed covers, the child they
had come to see. A little, withered, shrunken piece of humanity, so
nearly the colour of the rags he lay upon that his dark shock of matted
curly hair made a startling spot in the picture.

"What's the matter, Sarah?" said Matilda in a distressed whisper.

"This is Mrs. Binn's boy, Miss Mati