and the shops of the West End have fairly blazed with
the glory of their roses. Winsome lassie's and serene ladies have made
themselves gay with their flowers.

There they sit, as they have sat together for thirty years. Neither can
read or write, but what can be done in flowers they can do. Long hours
and dark rooms have made the man almost blind.

He suffers also from heart disease and dropsy. He cannot do much, but he
can sit, and sit, while his wife works and works, for in the underworld
married women must work if dying husbands are to be cared for.

So for fifteen hours daily and nightly they sit at their roses! Then
they lie down on the bed we see in the corner, but sleep does not come,
for asthma troubles him, and he must be attended and nursed.

Shall we pay another visit to that underworld room? Come, then. Two
months have passed away, the evil-smelling lamp is still burning, the
woman still sits at the table, but no rose-leaves are before her; she
is making black tulips. On the bed lies a still form with limbs decently
smoothed and composed; the poor blind eyes are closed for ever. He is
awaiting the day of burial, and day after day the partner of his life
and death is sitting, and working, for in this underworld bereaved wives
must work if husbands are to be decently buried. The black tulips she
will wear as mourning for him; she will accompany his poor body to the
cemetery, and then return to live alone and to finish her work alone.

But let us continue our midnight explorations, heedless of the men and
women now returning from their nightly prowl who jostle us as they pass.

We enter another room where the air is thick and makes us sick and
faint. We stand at the entrance and look around; we see again the
evil-smelling lamp, and again a woman at work at a small table, and she
too is a widow!

She is making cardboard boxes, and pretty things they are. Two beds are
in the room, and one contains three, and the other two children. On the
beds lie scores of dainty boxes. The outside parts lie on one bed, and
the insides on the other. They are drying while the children sleep; by
and by they will be put together, tied in dozens, and next morning taken
to the factory. But of their future history we dare not inquire.

The widow speaks to us, but her hands never rest; we notice the celerity
of her movements, the dreadful automatic certainty of her touch is
almost maddening; we wait and watch, but all in vain,