"That boy never comes out of his dreaming except for something to eat. Dear me! the idea of living among a lot of Germans!" said Mrs. Lively, returning to the subject. "There's a French element there, the remnants of the Icarians--a colony of Communists under Cabet," the doctor explained. "What! those horrid Communists that turned Paris upside down?" Mrs. Lively exclaimed. "Oh no," said the doctor. "They settled in Nauvoo some twenty years ago, I believe." "Dear! dear! dear! it's very hard," said the lady. "My dear, I think we are very fortunate. Harrison says there's plenty of work there, though it's hard work--riding over bad roads. He promises me letters of introduction to merchants there, so that I can get credit for the household goods we shall need to begin with and for our pressing necessities. He has already written to a man there to rent us a house, and put up a kitchen stove and a couple of plain beds, and to have a few provisions on hand when we arrive. I purpose leaving here to-morrow, or the day after at farthest." "But how are we ever to get there without money?" "We can get passes out of the city. So, my dear, please try to feel grateful. Think of the thousands here who can't turn round, who are utterly helpless." "Well, it never did help me to feel better to know that somebody was worse off than I. It doesn't cure my headache to be told that somebody else has a raging toothache. Grateful! when I haven't even a change of clothes!" "Go to the relief-rooms and get a change of under garments," Dr. Lively advised. "I won't go there and wait round like a beggar, and have them ask me a million of prying questions, and all for somebody's old clothes," Mrs. Lively declared. "Now, my dear," her husband remonstrated, "I have been a great deal in the relief-rooms, and I believe there are no unnecessary questions asked--only such as are imperative to prevent imposition." "The things don't belong to them any more than they do to me." "Perhaps not as much. They were sent to the destitute, such as you, so you shouldn't mind asking for your own," the doctor argued. "Think what a mean little story I should have to tell! I do wish you'd bought that house. If we'd lost fifty thousand!--but a few bed-quilts and those old frogs and bugs and dried leaves of yours! The most miserable Irish woman on DeKoven street can tell as big a story of losses as we can." "I'll go to the relief-rooms and get some clothes for you," said the doctor decidedly: "I'm not ashamed." "I won't wear any of the things if you bring them," said Mrs. Lively. "Oh, wife," said the doctor, his face pallid and grieved, "you are wrong, you are wrong. Are you to get no kind of good out of this calamity? Is the chastisement to exasperate only? to make you more perverse, more bitter?" "You are very complimentary," was the wife's reply. The doctor was silent for a moment: then he took up his hat. "I'm going to try to get passes out of the city," he said.