the comfortable house which adjoined Mr. Rimmon's church, and after a
little while that gentleman came down the steps. He was not in a happy
frame of mind, for stocks had fallen heavily the day before, and he had
just received a note from Ferdy Wickersham. However, as he settled his
plump person beside the lady, the Rev. William H. Rimmon was as
well-satisfied-looking as any man on earth could be. Who can blame him
if he thought how sweet it would be if he could drive thus always!

The carriage presently stopped at the entrance of a narrow street that
ran down toward the river. The coachman appeared unwilling to drive down
so wretched an alley, and waited for further instructions. After a few
words the clergyman and Mrs. Lancaster got out.

"You wait here, James; we will walk." They made their way down the
street, through a multitude of curious children with one common
attribute, dirt, examining the numbers on either side, and commiserating
the poor creatures who had to live in such squalor.

Presently Mrs. Lancaster stopped.

"This is the number."

It was an old house between two other old houses.

Mrs. Lancaster made some inquiries of a slatternly woman who sat sewing
just inside the doorway, and the latter said there was such a person as
she asked for in a room on the fourth floor. She knew nothing about her
except that she was very sick and mostly out of her head. The
health-doctor had been to see her, and talked about sending her to
a hospital.

The three made their way up the narrow stairs and through the dark
passages, so dark that matches had to be lighted to show them the way.
Several times Mr. Rimmon protested against Mrs. Lancaster going farther.
Such holes were abominable; some one ought to be prosecuted for it.
Finally the woman stopped at a door.

"She's in here." She pushed the door open without knocking, and walked
in, followed by Mrs. Lancaster and Mr. Rimmon. It was a cupboard hardly
more than ten feet square, with a little window that looked out on a
dead-wall not more than an arm's-length away.

A bed, a table made of an old box, and another box which served as a
stool, constituted most of the furniture, and in the bed, under a ragged
coverlid, lay the form of the sick woman.

"There's a lady and a priest come to see you," said the guide, not
unkindly. She turned to Mrs. Lancaster. "I don't know as you can make
much of her. Sometimes she's right flighty."

The sick woman turned her head