le for all that.

The next day the McTeagues moved for a second time. It did not take them
long. They were obliged to buy the bed from the landlady, a circumstance
which nearly broke Trina's heart; and this bed, a couple of chairs,
Trina's trunk, an ornament or two, the oil stove, and some plates and
kitchen ware were all that they could call their own now; and this back
room in that wretched house with its grisly memories, the one window
looking out into a grimy maze of back yards and broken sheds, was what
they now knew as their home.

The McTeagues now began to sink rapidly lower and lower. They became
accustomed to their surroundings. Worst of all, Trina lost her pretty
ways and her good looks. The combined effects of hard work, avarice,
poor food, and her husband's brutalities told on her swiftly. Her
charming little figure grew coarse, stunted, and dumpy. She who had once
been of a catlike neatness, now slovened all day about the room in
a dirty flannel wrapper, her slippers clap-clapping after her as she
walked. At last she even neglected her hair, the wonderful swarthy
tiara, the coiffure of a queen, that shaded her little pale forehead.
In the morning she braided it before it was half combed, and piled and
coiled it about her head in haphazard fashion. It came down half a dozen
times a day; by evening it was an unkempt, tangled mass, a veritable
rat's nest.

Ah, no, it was not very gay, that life of hers, when one had to rustle
for two, cook and work and wash, to say nothing of paying the rent. What
odds was it if she was slatternly, dirty, coarse? Was there time to make
herself look otherwise, and who was there to be pleased when she was all
prinked out? Surely not a great brute of a husband who bit you like a
dog, and kicked and pounded you as though you were made of iron. Ah, no,
better let things go, and take it as easy as you could. Hump your back,
and it was soonest over.

The one room grew abominably dirty, reeking with the odors of cooking
and of "non-poisonous" paint. The bed was not made until late in the
afternoon, sometimes not at all. Dirty, unwashed crockery, greasy
knives, sodden fragments of yesterday's meals cluttered the table, while
in one corner was the heap of evil-smelling, dirty linen. Cockroaches
appeared in the crevices of the woodwork, the wall-paper bulged from the
damp walls and began to peel. Trina had long ago ceased to dust or to
wipe the furniture with a bit of rag. The grime