ad striking
the ground with a terrible shock.

I started from the window, feeling, for an instant, faint and sick.
In a few moments I returned, and looked out again. Both the fallen
ones had regained their feet, and passed out of sight, and Biddy,
who had witnessed the last scene in this half comic, half tragic
performance, was giving the pavement a plentiful coating of ashes
and cinders.

I may be permitted to remark, that I trust other housekeepers, whose
pavements are washed on cold mornings--and their name, I had almost
said, is legion--are as innocent as I was in the above case, and
that the wrong to pedestrians lies at the door of thoughtless
servants. But is it not our duty to see the wrong has no further
repetition?

It has been remarked that the residence of a truly humane man may be
known by the ashes before his door on a slippery morning. If this be
so, what are we to think of those who coolly supply a sheet of ice
to the side walk?

CHAPTER XII.

REGARD FOR THE POOR.

WE sometimes get, by chance, as it were, glimpses of life altogether
new, yet full of instruction. I once had such a glimpse, and, at the
time, put it upon record as a lesson for myself as well as others.
Its introduction into this series of "Confessions" will be quite in
place.

"How many children have you?" I asked of a poor woman, one day, who,
with her tray of fish on her head, stopped at my door with the hope
of finding a customer.

"Four," she replied.

"All young?"

"Yes ma'am. The oldest is but seven years of age."

"Have you a husband?" I enquired.

The woman replied in a changed voice:

"Yes, ma'am. But he isn't much help to me. Like a great many other
men, he drinks too much. If it wasn't for that, you wouldn't find me
crying fish about the streets in the spring, and berries through the
summer, to get bread for my children. He could support us all
comfortably, if he was only sober; for he has a good trade, and is a
good workman. He used to earn ten and sometimes twelve dollars a
week."

"How much do you make towards supporting your family?" I asked.

"Nearly all they get to live on, and that isn't much," she said
bitterly. "My husband sometimes pays the rent, and sometimes he
doesn't even do that. I have made as high as four dollars in a week,
but oftener two or three is the most I get."

"How in the world can you support yourself, husband, and four
children on three dollars a week?"

"I have to do