The front room answered the double purpose of parlor by day and sleeping room by night, the bed disappearing in the shape of a broad, luxurious-looking sofa, or lounge, whose neat covering of green and white chintz, with the soft, motherly cushions, gave no hint of the bedding stowed carefully away beneath. The carpet also was green, of a light, cheerful pattern, while the easy chairs were covered with the same material. Plain muslin curtains were draped gracefully back from the windows, in one of which a bird-cage was hanging, and in the other a wire basket of moss, from which the German ivy hung in festoons, and then was trained back to the wall, making for both the windows a beautiful cornice, and reaching still further on to a pretty chromo which it surrounded with a network of leaves. Over the mantel was another and a larger-sized chromo, and on the wall opposite two or three first-class engravings. These, with a few brackets and vases, a book-case of well-chosen books, and a head of Schiller and Dante, completed the furniture of the room, if we except the bright fire blazing in the grate and the pretty lion’s-head rug lying before the fender. To the left of the front windows was a door opening into the hall bedroom, Jack’s room, with its single bed, its strip of carpeting, its one chair, its little square stand, and on the wall a porcelain-type of Georgie, whose black eyes, though soft and beautiful, seemed to have in them a look of contempt, as if they scorned their humble surroundings. A narrow passage, with closets and shelves on either side, divided the parlor from the room in the rear, which also did double service as dining-room and kitchen, where Luna baked, and washed, and ironed, and served her master’s meals with as much care and attention as if he had been the richest man in the city, and dined each day from solid plate. Old Luna’s sleeping apartment was the little room or closet off from the kitchen, which she kept so neat and tidy that few would have shrunk from resting there in her easy chair, or even from sleeping, if need be, in her clean, wholesome-looking bed. And here Jack lived content and happy till his mother died. With her death a great light had gone from his dwelling, for the mother and son were tenderly attached; but whatever Jack suffered, he suffered alone, in the privacy of his own room, or out in the dark streets, which he often traversed at night after his work was done. There was seldom a trace of sadness in his genial, good-natured face when he went back to Annie, who, since her accident and his mother’s death, had at times been given to fits of weeping and depression. “I want somethin’, and I don’t know,” was what she had said at first when questioned as to the cause of her grief.