fter briefly watching his handling of it I quite agreed with
him. It was four o'clock when we were finally off, and the shades of
evening had fallen before we reached our new home.

The generous and sympathetic welcome of our new janitress was like balm.
One was low-voiced and her own sorrows had filled her with a broad
understanding of human trials. She looked weary herself, and suggested
_en passant_ that the doctor had prescribed a little stimulant as being
what she most needed, but that, of course, such things were not for the
poor.

I had a bottle of material, distilled over the peat fires of Scotland. I
knew where it was and I found it for her. Then the moving man came up
with a number of our belongings and we forgot her in the general
turmoil and misery that ensued. Bump--bump--up the narrow stairs came
our household goods and gods, and were planted at random about the
floor, in shapeless heaps and pyramids. All were up, at last, except a
few large pieces.

At this point in the proceedings the moving man and his assistant paused
in their labors and the former fished out of his misfit clothing a
greasy piece of paper which he handed me. I glanced at it under the jet
and saw that it was my bill.

"Oh, all right," I said, "I can't stop just now. Wait till you get
everything up, and then I can get at my purse and pay you."

He grinned at me.

"It's the boss's rule," he said, "to collect before the last things is
taken out of the van."

I understood now why the pieces of value had gone in first. I also
understood what the "boss" had meant in saying that we would have to get
up early to get ahead of him. While I was digging up the money they made
side remarks to each other on the lateness of the hour, the length of
the stairs, and the heaviness of the pieces still to come. I gave them
each a liberal tip in sheer desperation.

They were gone at last and we stood helplessly among our belongings that
lay like flotsam and jetsam tossed up on a forbidding shore. The
Precious Ones were whimpering with cold and hunger and want of sleep;
the hopelessness of life pressed heavily upon us. Wearily we dragged
something together for beds, and then crept out to find food. When we
returned there was a dark object in the dim hall against our door. I
struck a match to see what it was. It was a woman, and the sorrows of
living and the troubles of dying were as naught to her. Above and about
her hung the aroma of the peat fires