She had turned aside into a narrow alley, which, in but a few steps led into a scene of painful contrast to the avenue. It was the slum district--right in the center of the beautiful city--the worm at the heart of the flower. Here the streets were narrow and dirty. Noisy ragged children, Italian vendors, Jewish ragpickers, slatternly women, and drunken men brushed against them as they passed. "You should not have come this way, Miss Gordon," said Mr. Huntley solicitously, as he guided her across the black muck of the crossing, to which the snow had already been converted. "I hope you do not come here alone." "I was never here before," said Elizabeth. "How terrible to live in comfort with this at one's back door, as it were." She shuddered. Mr. Huntley looked slightly disturbed. "I am glad you are not one of those sentimental young ladies of St. Stephen's, who have been seized with the romantic idea that they can overturn conditions here. These people are better left alone." Elizabeth was silent. They had just passed a wee ragged girl, whose blue, pinched face and hungry eyes made her sick with pity. The child was calling shrilly to an equally ragged boy who had paused on the sidewalk a little ahead of them. The youngster was absorbed in tormenting a feeble old man, whose little wagon with its load of soiled clothing he had just overturned into the mud of the street. The man was making pitiful attempts to gather up his bundle, but his poor old frame, stiffened and twisted with rheumatism, refused to bend. The urchin shouted with laughter, and his victim leaned against a wall whimpering helplessly. The sight of him hurt Elizabeth even more than the little girl's hungry face. She thought of her own father, and felt a hint of the anguish it would mean if ho should one day be ill-treated. The tears came, blinding her eyes so that she stumbled along the rotten sidewalk. A young woman suddenly appeared from the door of a hovel that stood half-way down an alley just across the way. She had a ragged shawl over her head, her thin cotton shirt flapped about her meager limbs, and her feet were incased in men's boots. She ran swiftly to the old man, routed the urchin, and with many pitying, comforting words began gathering up the contents of the wagon. Elizabeth longed to stay and help and comfort them both; she listened eagerly, after they had passed, to catch what the girl was saying. "Poor grandaddy," she heard again and again. "Poor grandaddy, I shouldn't have let ye go alone." There was something about her that drew Elizabeth to her. She wanted to stop and thank her for the assurance that love could blossom so beautifully even in this barren spot. Her voice, too, haunted her. Where had she heard that soft Highland accent before? It seemed to bring some vague memory of childhood. She glanced up at her companion, wondering if she dared step back and speak to the pair.