onsive thrill at her
enthusiasm, that made me sure she can succeed
in anything she attempts.

"Well, I've read of slums and have always
taken it as a matter of course that it was one
of the evils to be expected in a large city,
but I never thought to see with my own eyes
what I saw that day, in an ordinary town like
Riverville. Maybe living so long as I have done
on the clean, fresh desert and in the pure air
of the hills, made it seem worse to me, but
anybody would have been horrified at what she
showed me. When I exclaimed over the filth and
foul odors, as we picked our way over the
ash-piles and garbage and slimy pools in one
back yard, and said that people might at least
keep themselves clean, even if they were poor,
she turned on me, her eyes fairly blazing.

"'That's what everybody says!' she exclaimed.
'That's why I brought you here, to prove to you
that these tenants are not to blame. Look! This
house was originally built for two families,
but _ten_ families are crowded into it now,
with only one cistern to provide water for the
whole lot. And every drop of it has to be
carried to the different stories in buckets. No
wonder they have to be "sparin' of water," as
little Elsie Whayne complained, when I found
her crying over her line full of yellow-gray,
half-clean clothes. She had come from the
country, where she had had an unlimited supply,
and couldn't get used to hoarding every drop.
The landlord won't provide city water, and
there is no law to make him do it.'

"As she spoke the nasty, greasy contents of a
dishpan came splashing over the railing of the
porch above us, into the court where we were
standing, and we barely escaped being drenched
with it. A few drops did reach me, and when I
expressed my disgust most forcibly, Mrs. Blythe
said apologetically, 'Don't blame the poor
woman. She has no other place to throw it. The
landlord won't provide drains and there is no
law to make him do it. And up-stairs, I am
going to show you three rooms _without
windows_, where people live and eat and sleep
by lamplight, without a ray of sunshine or a