He was sleeping, and a woman, scarcely less wretched in appearance, sat in a broken chair by his side, her elbows resting upon her knees, and her head bowed upon her hands. A small, cracked stove, upon which there was a broken-nosed tea-kettle, was the only other piece of furniture in the room. “Mother,” whispered Milly, as soon as Editha had entered and she had closed the door, “here is a lady who says she will help us.” The girl passed lightly over the floor and stood by the woman’s side, placing one hand on her shoulder to attract her attention. She lifted her haggard face in a bewildered way, and gazed with a vacant stare first upon her child, then upon Editha. “Help!” she muttered, her hands working nervously. “We’ll need help soon, or——” A shudder finished the sentence more impressively than words could have done, and then, without taking any further notice of her strange visitor, she relapsed into her former indifference and position. Editha was appalled at what she saw. She had not dreamed of such misery as this, and her face grew white and grave with sorrow and pity. Drawing her purse from her pocket, she took a bill from it with eager, trembling fingers. “Milly,” she said, in a low tone, pressing it into her hand, “go quickly and get something with which to make a fire and something to eat; you know what you need better than I can tell you.” The words were scarcely uttered when the child’s thin fingers clutched the money, and with a smothered cry of thankfulness, she was gone like a flash of light. Editha then turned her attention to the mother. Going to her side, she touched her gently on the shoulder. “My poor woman,” she said, kindly, “how long have you been like this?” She looked up again, with the same vacant stare as before. “What?” she said, in hollow tones. Editha repeated her question. “We’ve had no fire for a week, miss,” she said, with an effort to arouse herself; “but it hasn’t been quite so bad until to-day, for the sun comes in at the window when it’s pleasant, and we could sit in that and keep comfortable.” Comfortable! Editha thought of the cheerful fire in her grate at home, while the house was also heated from attic to cellar with steam, and her heart smote her painfully. “And have you absolutely _nothing_ to eat?” she asked, her eyes filling with tears. “We have not been entirely without food until to-day; we ate our last penny’s worth of bread yesterday,” the woman answered, with a deep-drawn sigh, and, from her manner of speaking, Editha instinctively knew that at some previous time in her life she had known “better days.” “Has your husband been ill long?” she asked, with a glance toward the ghastly sleeper.