At the word, the young woman retreated into a corner behind the counter, her face flushed and her eyes flashing with an almost savage light—
"You cowardly villain!" she said, "to insult me because I will not permit you to rob me. O, you despicable coward—for shame!"
The look of her eye and curl of her lip by no means pleased the corpulent Grabb. He grew red with rage. When he spoke again it was in a loud voice and with an emphatic sweep of the yardstick.
"If you don't give 'em up, I'll—I'll break every bone in your body. You hussy! You——! What do you think of yourself—to attempt to rob a poor man of his property?"
These words attracted the attention of the passers-by; and in a moment, the doorway was occupied by a throng of curious spectators. The poor girl, looking over Grabb's shoulders, saw that she was the object of the gaze of some dozen pairs of eyes.
"Gentlemen, this hussy has attempted to rob me of my property! I gave her stuff sufficient to make five shirts, and she's spoilt 'em so I can't sell 'em for old rags, and—and she won't give 'em up."
"If they ain't good for nothing, what d'ye want with 'em?" remarked the foremost of the spectators.
But Grabb was determined to bring matters to a crisis.
"Now, look here," he said, holding the yardstick in front of the girl, and thus imprisoning her in the corner; "if you don't give 'em up, I'll strip the clothes from your back."
The girl turned scarlet in the face; her arms sank slowly to her side; the bundle fell from her hands; she burst into tears.
"Shame! shame!" cried one of the spectators.
"It's the way he does business," added a voice in the background. "He won't give out any work unless the girl, who applies for it, places some money in his hands as a pledge. When the work is brought into the store, he pretends that it's spoilt, and keeps the money. That's the way he raises capital!"
"What's that you say?" cried Grabb, turning fiercely on the crowd, who had advanced some one or two paces into the store. "Who said that?"
A man in a coarse, brown bang-up advanced from the crowd—
"I said it, and I'll stand to it! Ain't you a purty specimen of a bald-headed Christian, to try and cheat the poor girl out of her hard-airned money?"
"I'll call the police," cried Grabb.
"What a pattern! what a beauty!" continued the man in the brown bang-up; "why rotten eggs 'ud be wasted on such a carcass as that!"
"Police! Police!" screamed Grabb—"Gentlemen, I'd like to know if there is any law in this land?"
While this altercation was in progress the poor girl—thoroughly ashamed to find herself the center of a public broil—covered her face with her hands and wept as if her heart would break.
"Take my arm," said a voice at her side; "there will be a fight. Quick, my dear Miss, you must get out of this as quick as possible."
The speaker was a short and slender man, wrapped in a Spanish mantle, and his hat was drawn low over his forehead.
The girl seized his arm, and while the crowd formed a circle around Grabb and the brown bang-up, they contrived to pass unobserved from the store. Presently the poor girl was hurrying along Canal street, her hand still clasping the arm of the stranger in the cloak.
"Bad business! Bad business!" he said in a quick, abrupt tone. "That Grabb's a scoundrel. Here's Broadway, my dear, and I must bid you good-night. Good-night—good-night."
And he left the poor girl at the corner of Broadway and Canal street. He was lost in the crowd ere she was aware of his departure. She was left alone, on the street corner, in the midst of that torrent of life; and it was not until some moments had elapsed that she could fully comprehend her desolate condition.
"It was the last five dollars I had in the world! What can I do! In the name of God, what can I do!"
She looked up Broadway—it extended there, one glittering track of light.
"Not a friend, and not a dollar in the world!"
She looked down Broadway—far into the distance it extended, its million lights over-arched by a dull December sky.
"Not a friend and not a dollar!"
She turned down Broadway with languid and leaden steps. A miserably clad and heart-broken girl, she glided among the crowds, which lined the street, like a specter through the mazes of a banquet.
Poor girl! Down Broadway, until the Park is passed, and the huge Astor House glares out upon the darkness from its hundred windows. Down Broadway, until you reach the unfinished pile of Trinity Church, where heaps of lumber and rubbish appear among white tombstones. Turn from Broadway and stride this narrow street which leads to the dark river: your home is there.
Back of Trinity Church, in Greenwich street, we believe, there stands on this December night a four storied edifice, tenanted, only a few years ago, by a wealthy family. Then it was the palace of a man who counted his wealth by hundreds of thousands. Now it is a palace of a different sort; look at it, as from garret to cellar it flashes with light in every window.
The cellar is the home of ten families.
The first floor is occupied as a beer "saloon;" you can hear men getting drunk in three or four languages, if you will only stand by the window for a moment.
Twenty persons live on the second floor.
Fifteen make their home on the third floor.
The fourth floor is tenanted by nineteen human beings.
The garret is divided into four apartments; one of these has a garret-window to itself, and this is the home of the poor girl.
She ascended the marble staircase which led from the first to the fourth floor. At every step her ear was assailed with curses, drunken shouts, the cries of children, and a thousand other sounds, which, night and day resounded through that palace of rags and wretchedness. Feeble and heart-sick she arrived at length in front of the garret door, which opened into her home.
She listened in the darkness; all was still within.
"He sleeps," she murmured, "thank God!" and opened the door. All was dark within, but presently, with the aid of a match, she lighted a candle, and the details of the place were visible. It was a nook of the original garret, fenced off by a partition of rough boards. The slope of the roof formed its ceiling. The garret window occupied nearly an entire side of the place. There was a mattress on the floor, in one corner; a small pine table stood beside the partition; and the recess of the garret-window was occupied by an old arm-chair.
This chair was occupied by a man whose body, incased in a faded wrapper, reminded you of a skeleton placed in a sitting posture. His emaciated hands rested on the arms, and his head rested helplessly against the back of the chair. His hair was white as snow; it was scattered in flakes about his forehead. His face, furrowed in deep wrinkles, was lividly pale; it resembled nothing save the face of a corpse. His eyes, wide open and fixed as if the hand of death had touched him, were centered upon the flame of the candle, while a meaningless smile played about his colorless lips.
The girl kissed him on the lips and forehead, but he gave no sign of recognition save a faint laugh, which died on the air ere it was uttered.
For the poor man, prematurely old and reduced to a mere skeleton, was an idiot.
"Oh, my God, and I have not bread to feed him!" No words can describe the tone and look with which the poor girl uttered these words.
She flung aside her bonnet and shawl.
Then it might be seen that, in spite of her faded dress, she was a very beautiful young woman; not only beautiful in regularity of features, but in the whiteness of her shoulders, the fullness of her