times thought of
looking up Gretchen, in order to become acquainted with her
surroundings, etc., but had not yet put her design into execution, and
now the girl's absence from the class gave her teacher the very
opportunity she desired.

As soon as tea was over, in the long June twilight, Etta put on her hat,
and walked down the hill upon which the grand house stood to the valley,
in which was the long row of boarding-houses occupied by such of the
mill-hands as had no homes in the place. It was stiflingly hot down
here, though it had been cool and fresh on the high ground above, and
the young lady, who had not often visited the purlieus of the mill, felt
as though she could scarcely breathe, and did not wonder that men sat at
the open windows in their shirtsleeves, and that tired-looking women
seemed gasping for air. The bare wooden buildings, with their long rows
of windows and doors all of the same pattern; the smooth, beaten yards,
all just alike; the swarms of children making it seem anything but
Sunday-like with their noise; the teeming population, which made the
tenements resemble ant-hills, and seemed to forbid any idea of privacy,
looked very dreadful to her.

On the other side of the street was a long row of brick cottages, each
inhabited by two or more families, the distinctive sign of each being
the family pig, kept, for greater convenience, in the front yard, from
which odors, not the most choice in their nature, were constantly wafted
across the way. In the doorways of most of these lounged Irishmen
smoking and swearing, in some cases in a state of intoxication; for,
although the rules of the mill concerning drinking were very strict, and
no habitual drinker was ever knowingly engaged in it, it was impossible
to prevent the men from depositing a part of the earnings received every
Saturday night in the hands of one or two liquor-dealers whom the law
licensed to sell death and ruin to their fellow-men.

How dreadful, thought the young lady, to be compelled to spend one's
life in such wretched surroundings. Is it any wonder that the women
become hopeless slatterns, and that the children grow up in vice and
sin? How thankful I ought to be to the heavenly Father who has
surrounded me with such different influences! how I wish I might do
something to raise and elevate these, and give them a few of the
blessings of which I have so many!

Etta Mountjoy had grown since that early June Sunday when she had
visi