awake, lived in brain and nerves the heart-breaking scenes
through which she had passed numb and stolid.

About six o'clock a breakfast of coffee, milk and bread was
served. It was evident that the police did not know what to do
with these outcasts who had nothing and no place to go--for
practically all were out of work when the blow came. Ashbel
demanded shoes, pants and a coat.

"I've got to get to my job," shouted he, "or else I'll lose it.
Then where in the hell'd we be!"

His blustering angered the sergeant, who finally told him if he
did not quiet down he would be locked in a cell. Susan
interrupted, explained the situation, got Ashbel the necessary
clothes and freed Etta and herself of his worse than useless
presence. At Susan's suggestion such other men as had jobs were
also fitted out after a fashion and sent away. "You can take the
addresses of their families if you send them anywhere during the
day, and these men can come back here and find out where they've
gone----" this was the plan she proposed to the captain, and he
adopted it. As soon as the morning papers were about the city,
aid of every kind began to pour in, with the result that before
noon many of the families were better established than they had
been before the fire.

Susan and Etta got some clothing, enough to keep them warm on
their way through the streets to the hospital to which Brashear
and his wife had been taken. Mrs. Brashear had died in the
ambulance--of heart disease, the doctors said, but Susan felt it
was really of the sense that to go on living was impossible. And
fond of her though she was, she could not but be relieved that
there was one less factor in the unsolvable problem.

"She's better, off" she said to Etta in the effort to console.

But Etta needed no consolation. "Ever so much better off," she
promptly assented. "Mother hasn't cared about living since we
had to give up our little home and become tenement house people.
And she was right."

As to Brashear, they learned that he was ill; but they did not
learn until evening that he was dying of pneumonia. The two
girls and Ashbel were admitted to the ward where he lay--one of
a long line of sufferers in bare, clean little beds. Screens
were drawn round his bed because he was dying. He had been
suffering torments from the savage assaults of the pneumonia;
but the pain had passed away now, so he said, though the
dreadful sound of his breathing made Susan