ly had no wish to go. She shrank from contact with something
which the experienced Mr. Berry pronounced "the worst ever." But he was
waiting so confidently for her to put on her hat and accompany him, that
there seemed nothing else for her to do.

"Get an eye on those basement rooms," he advised her as he left her at
the corner of Myrtle and Tenth Streets, and pointed out the steps
leading to the underground rooms in Diamond Row. With the helpless
feeling of one who cannot swim, yet is left to plunge alone into icy
water, Mary stood at the top of the steps until she was afraid her
hesitation would attract attention. Then plucking up her courage, she
forced herself to walk down and knock at the open door.

What she saw in her first quick glance was a girl no older than herself,
lying on a dirty bare mattress, a woman bending over a wash-tub, and a
baby crawling around the floor. What she saw in her second horrified
glance was that a green mould stood out on the walls, that both plaster
and lath were broken away in places, so that one could peer through
into an adjoining cellar. Evidently the cellar had water standing in it,
from the foul, dank odor which came in through the holes. And the water
must have seeped through into this room at times, for some of the planks
in the floor nearest the wall were rotting.

The woman looked up listlessly without taking her arms from the tub, as
Mary made her faltering inquiry for the old lady who made lace, and
answered in some foreign tongue. Then she bent again to her rubbing, in
stolid indifference to the stranger who had made a sudden descent on her
home. Mary was too inexperienced to know that one cause of her
indifference was that she was too underfed and overworked and mentally
stunted by her hideous surroundings to care who came and went around
her.

Mary turned to the girl on the musty mattress. It wasn't actual
starvation which drew the skin so tightly over her cheek-bones and gave
the pinched look to her face, for there was food still left on the
cluttered table, where flies buzzed over the unwashed dishes in
sickening swarms. It was the disease which had claimed a victim,
sometimes several, from every family in turn who occupied the room,
because it had never been properly disinfected. Not even the sunlight
could get in to do its share towards making it fit for a human dwelling,
for the only windows of this half-underground room were narrow transoms
near the ceiling, a