ich."

"Indeed I am not, Mrs. Parker."

"Yes, you are. You're living here in a grand house, and your father's
made of money. You'll know nothing of want, let the worst come to
the worst. What are we to do, Mrs. Lopez? I'm the wife of that poor
creature, and you're the wife of the man that has ruined him. What
are we to do, Mrs. Lopez?"

"I do not understand my husband's business, Mrs. Parker."

"You're one with him, ain't you? If anybody had ever come to me and
said my husband had robbed him, I'd never have stopped till I knew
the truth of it. If any woman had ever said to me that Parker had
taken the bread out of her children's mouths, do you think that I'd
sit as you are sitting? I tell you that Lopez has robbed us,--has
robbed us, and taken everything."

"What can I say, Mrs. Parker;--what can I do?"

"Where is he?"

"He is not here. He is dining at his club."

"Where is that? I will go there and shame him before them all. Don't
you feel no shame? Because you've got things comfortable here, I
suppose it's all nothing to you. You don't care, though my children
were starving in the gutter,--as they will do."

"If you knew me, Mrs. Parker, you wouldn't speak to me like that."

"Know you! Of course I know you. You're a lady, and your father's a
rich man, and your husband thinks no end of himself. And we're poor
people, so it don't matter whether we're robbed and ruined or not.
That's about it."

"If I had anything, I'd give you all that I had."

"And he's taken to drinking that hard that he's never rightly sober
from morning to night." As she told this story of her husband's
disgrace, the poor woman burst into tears. "Who's to trust him with
business now? He's that broken-hearted that he don't know which way
to turn,--only to the bottle. And Lopez has done it all,--done it
all! I haven't got a father, ma'am, who has got a house over his
head for me and my babies. Only think if you was turned out into the
street with your babby, as I am like to be."

"I have no baby," said the wretched woman through her tears and sobs.

"Haven't you, Mrs. Lopez? Oh dear!" exclaimed the soft-hearted woman,
reduced at once to pity. "How was it then?"

"He died, Mrs. Parker,--just a few days after he was born."

"Did he now? Well, well. We all have our troubles, I suppose."

"I have mine, I know," said Emily, "and very, very heavy they are. I
cannot tell you what I have to suffer."

"Isn't he good to you?"

"I cannot