But now Gretchen was absent from her work one, two, three, four days. It was Miss Peters's duty to report all absentees on Saturday night, and she did so after the hands had been paid off and gone home. The book-keeper noted the absence in his pages, asked if work was so pressing as to make the appointment of a substitute necessary or advisable, and being answered in the negative quite forgot to inform his employer of the girl's absence. But when Sunday came, and Gretchen was absent from the place in the class which she had so regularly occupied, it was a different thing. Etta, among her other activities, had from the first been a good visitor of absentees. Indeed, when her scholars lived with their families, as in the case of Katie and one or two of the other girls, she had made more visits and laid down the law more than was quite agreeable in all cases. Now, with her newly awakened sense of responsibility toward the immortal souls placed under her charge, she had begun to watch over them as one who must give account of their souls. She had several times thought of looking up Gretchen, in order to become acquainted with her surroundings, etc., but had not yet put her design into execution, and now the girl's absence from the class gave her teacher the very opportunity she desired. As soon as tea was over, in the long June twilight, Etta put on her hat, and walked down the hill upon which the grand house stood to the valley, in which was the long row of boarding-houses occupied by such of the mill-hands as had no homes in the place. It was stiflingly hot down here, though it had been cool and fresh on the high ground above, and the young lady, who had not often visited the purlieus of the mill, felt as though she could scarcely breathe, and did not wonder that men sat at the open windows in their shirtsleeves, and that tired-looking women seemed gasping for air. The bare wooden buildings, with their long rows of windows and doors all of the same pattern; the smooth, beaten yards, all just alike; the swarms of children making it seem anything but Sunday-like with their noise; the teeming population, which made the tenements resemble ant-hills, and seemed to forbid any idea of privacy, looked very dreadful to her.