quite an optimistic frame of mind as I drew close to the most fearfully
and wonderfully mutilated little cook-stove that ever cheered the heart
of a lonely Fourteenth-street "light housekeeper." In the red-hot glow
of its presence, and with the inspiring example of courage and fortitude
which it presented, how could I have felt otherwise than optimistic? It
was such a tiny mite of a stove, and it seemed to have had such a world
of misfortune and bad luck! There was something whimsically, almost
pathetically, human about it. This, it so pleased my fancy to believe,
was because of the sufferings it had borne. Its little body cracked and
warped and rust-eaten, the isinglass lights in its door long since
punched out by the ruthless poker, the door itself swung to on the
broken hinge by a twisted nail--a brave, bright, merry little cripple
of a stove, standing on short wooden legs. I made the interesting
discovery that it was a stove of the feminine persuasion; "Little
Lottie" was the name which I spelled out in the broken letters that it
wore across its glowing heart. And straightway Little Lottie became more
human than ever--poor Little Lottie, the one solitary bright and
cheerful object within these four smoke-grimed walls which I had elected
to make my home.

Home! The tears started at the mere recollection of the word. The
firelight that flickered through the broken door showed an ironical
contrast between the home that now was and that which once had been, and
to which I looked back with such loving thoughts that night. A narrow
wooden bedstead, as battered and crippled as Little Lottie, but without
the latter's air of sympathy and companionship; a tremulous kitchen
table; a long box set on end and curtained off with a bit of faded
calico, a single chair with a mended leg--these rude conveniences
comprised my total list of housekeeping effects, not forgetting, of
course, the dish-pan, the stubby broom, and the coal-scuttle, along with
the scanty assortment of thick, chipped dishes and the pots and pans on
the shelf behind the calico curtain. There was no bureau, only a waved
bit of looking-glass over the sink in the corner. My wardrobe was strung
along the row of nails behind the door, a modest array of petticoats and
skirts and shirt-waists, with a winter coat and a felt sailor-hat.
Beneath them, set at right angles to the corner, was the little
old-fashioned swell-top trunk, which precaution prompted me to drag
bef