by night, that is, in parts at least, and
yet it is very strange how comparatively few of the rank and file of its
inhabitants walk abroad to see the spectacle.

By lamplight the scars and wounds of subways appear less vivid, and the
perpetual skeleton of the skyscraper merges in its background. The
occasional good bit of architecture steps out boldly from the surrounding
shadows of daylight discouragement. City life does not seem to be such an
exhausting struggle, and even the "misery wagons," as I always call
ambulances to myself, look less dreary with the blinking light fore and
aft, for you cannot go far in New York without feeling the pitying thrill
of their gongs.

After the brightness of Broadway the side streets seemed cavernous. As we
turned westward and crossed Sixth Avenue a dark figure, outlined full
length against the blazing window of a corner liquor saloon, lined with
mirrors, in some way fixed my attention. It was a woman's figure, slight,
and a little crouching. The hat was gay and set on puffy hair, the jacket
brave with lace, but the skirt was frayed where it lapped the pavement,
and the boot that was pushed from beneath it, as if to steady a swaying
frame, was thin and broken. I do not know why I looked back after I had
passed, but as I did so, I saw the girl, for she was little more, pull a
scrap of chamois from a little bag she carried and quickly rub rouge upon
her hollow cheeks, using the saloon mirror for a toilet glass. But when I
saw the face itself I stopped short, giving Evan's arm such a tug that he
also turned.

The woman was Jennie, the Oakland baker's only daughter, who had no lack
of country beaus, but was flattered by the attentions of one of the
Jenks-Smith's butlers, whose irreproachable manners of the
count-in-disguise variety made the native youths appear indeed uncouth.
She grew discontented, thought it beneath her social position to help her
mother in the shop, and went to town to work in a store, it was said
until her wedding, which was to be that autumn. Father worried over her
and tried to advise, but to no purpose. This was more than two years ago.
The butler left the Jenks-Smith's, and we heard that he was a married
man, with a family who had come to look him up.

Jennie's mother said she had a fine place in a store, and showed us, from
time to time, presents the girl had sent her, so thus to find the truth
was a shock indeed. Not but what all women who are grown must be