"When I saw the determination in her face, not only did I wonder how I could have been so mistaken in my first estimate of her, but I felt a queer responsive thrill at her enthusiasm, that made me sure she can succeed in anything she attempts. "Well, I've read of slums and have always taken it as a matter of course that it was one of the evils to be expected in a large city, but I never thought to see with my own eyes what I saw that day, in an ordinary town like Riverville. Maybe living so long as I have done on the clean, fresh desert and in the pure air of the hills, made it seem worse to me, but anybody would have been horrified at what she showed me. When I exclaimed over the filth and foul odors, as we picked our way over the ash-piles and garbage and slimy pools in one back yard, and said that people might at least keep themselves clean, even if they were poor, she turned on me, her eyes fairly blazing. "'That's what everybody says!' she exclaimed. 'That's why I brought you here, to prove to you that these tenants are not to blame. Look! This house was originally built for two families, but _ten_ families are crowded into it now, with only one cistern to provide water for the whole lot. And every drop of it has to be carried to the different stories in buckets. No wonder they have to be "sparin' of water," as little Elsie Whayne complained, when I found her crying over her line full of yellow-gray, half-clean clothes. She had come from the country, where she had had an unlimited supply, and couldn't get used to hoarding every drop. The landlord won't provide city water, and there is no law to make him do it.'