rd-hearted and of the eternal
punishment that awaits unrepentant sinners. And then, at intervals, the
vindictive utterances were broken by pictures--these, too, of a
religious or pseudo-religious nature.

One of these pictures particularly attracted my attention. It was
entitled "Hope leaning upon Faith," and showed an exceedingly
sentimental young girl leaning heavily upon an anchor, her eyes lifted
heavenward, where the sun was just breaking through black clouds, and
all against a perspective of angry sea. I was trying to apply its
symbolism to my own case, when a sharp, metallic voice inquired
abruptly:

"What did you wish?"

I turned about quickly. A tall, hard-faced woman of forty or thereabouts
stood in the door, and looked at me coldly through spectacles that
hooked behind ears the natural prominence of which was enhanced by her
grayish hair being drawn up tightly and rolled into a "bun" on the very
top of the head. She was the personification of neatness, if such be the
word to characterize the prim stiffness of a flat-figured, elderly
spinster. She wore large, square-toed, common-sense shoes, with low
heels capped with rubber cushions, which, as I was shortly to discover,
had earned for the lady the sobriquet of "Old Gum Heels." What her real
name was I never found out. Nobody knew. She was the most hated of all
our tormentors; and in all of the weeks I was to remain in the house
over which she was one of the supervisors, I never heard her referred to
by any other than the very disrespectful cognomen already quoted. But I
am anticipating.

"I would like to get board here," I replied timidly, for the very manner
of the woman had in it an acid-like quality which bit and burned the
sensibilities like vitriol does the flesh.

"Have you any money?"

"Not very much."

"How much?" she demanded.

"About one dollar."

"What baggage have you?"

"None," I replied, and related as well as my embarrassment would allow
me the story of the fire and of my flight from Henrietta, not forgetting
the generosity of the cashier in the dairy lunch-room. She listened in
silence, and when I had finished I thought I saw the repression of a
smile, which may or may not have been of the sardonic order. Then she
motioned me to follow her through the long, gloomy hall to the rear of
the house, where, turning an angle, we came to a staircase down which a
flood of sunlight streamed from the big window on the landing. The
sunlight