botch along somehow. I look at the bright side
of things."

The incurable optimism of the smile accompanying these words
moved Susan, abnormally bruised and tender of heart that
morning, almost to tears. A woman with her own way to make,
and always looking at the bright side!

"How long have you had this house?"

"Only five months. My husband died a year ago. I had to give
up our little business six months after his death. Such a nice
little stationery store, but I couldn't seem to refuse credit
or to collect bills. Then I came here. This looks like losing,
too. But I'm sure I'll come out all right. The Lord will
provide, as the Good Book says. I don't have no trouble
keeping the house full. Only they don't seem to pay. You want
to see your room?"

She and Susan ascended three flights to the top story--to a
closet of a room at the back. The walls were newly and
brightly papered. The sloping roof of the house made one wall
a ceiling also, and in this two small windows were set. The
furniture was a tiny bed, white and clean as to its linen, a
table, two chairs, a small washstand with a little bowl and a
less pitcher, a soap dish and a mug. Along one wall ran a row
of hooks. On the floor was an old and incredibly dirty carpet,
mitigated by a strip of clean matting which ran from the door,
between washstand and bed, to one of the windows.

Susan glanced round--a glance was enough to enable her to see
all--all that was there, all that the things there implied.
Back to the tenement life! She shuddered.

"It ain't much," said Mrs. Tucker. "But usually rooms like
these rents for five a week."

The sun had heated the roof scorching hot; the air of this
room, immediately underneath, was like that of a cellar where
a furnace is in full blast. But Susan knew she was indeed in
luck. "It's clean and nice here," said she to Mrs. Tucker,
"and I'm much obliged to you for being so reasonable with me."
And to clinch the bargain she then and there paid half a
month's rent. "I'll give you the rest when my week at the
store's up."

"No hurry," said Mrs. Tucker who was handling the money and
looking at it with glistening grateful eyes. "Us poor folks
oughtn't to be hard on each other--though, Lord knows, if we
was, I reckon we'd not be quite so poor. It's them that has
the streak of hard in 'em what gets on. But the Bible teaches
us that's what to expect in a world of sin. I suppose you want
to go now