ion to work and answer me? I
am not talking for nothing. Take my old Christian, near eighty, who
sees a sunbeam for one hour in the twenty-four, when the sun shines,
and uses it to read her Bible. The rest of the twenty-four hours
without even the company of a sunbeam. Imagine--what would you, in her
place, wish for?'

'I should wish to die, I think.'

'It would be welcome to Mrs. Gregory, I do not doubt, though perhaps
for a different reason. Still, you would not counsel suicide, or
manslaughter. While you continued in life, what would you like?'

'Oh,' said Betty, with an emphatic utterance, 'I would like a place
where I could breathe!'

'Better lodgings?'

'Fresh air. I would beg for air. Of all the horrors of such places, the
worst seems to me the want of air fit to breathe.'

'Then you think she ought to have a better lodging, in a better
quarter. She cannot pay for it. I can. Ought I to give it to her?'

Betty fidgeted, inwardly. The conditions of the cab did not allow of
much external fidgeting.

'I do not know why you ask me this,' she said.

'No; but indulge me! I do not ask you without a purpose.'

'I am afraid of your purpose! Yes; if I must tell you, I should say,
Oh, take me out of this! Let me see the sun whenever he can be seen in
this rainy London; and let me have sweet air outside of my windows.
Then I would like somebody to look after me; to open my window in
summer and make my fire in winter, and prepare nice meals for me. I
would like good bread, and a cup of drinkable tea, and a little bit of
butter on my bread. And clothes enough to keep clean; and then I would
like to live to thank you!'

Betty had worked herself up to a point where she was very near a great
burst of tears. She stopped with a choked sob in her throat, and looked
out of the cab window. Pitt's voice was changed when he spoke.

'That is just what I thought.'

'And you have done it!'

'No; I am doing it. I could not at once find what I wanted. Now I have
got it, I believe. Go on now, please, and tell me what ought to be done
for the man in rheumatic fever.'

'The doctor would know better than I.'

'He cannot pay for a doctor.'

'But he ought to have one!'

'Yes, I thought so.'

'I see what you are coming to,' said Betty; 'but, Mr. Pitt, I can _not_
see that it is your duty to pay physician's bills for everybody that
cannot afford it.'

'I am not talking of everybody. I am speaking of this Mr. Hutchins.'

'