“I know,” he said, “we can spin it togevver, and it can be bofe of ours. That’s the only way to ’vide a top!” “You’re your mother’s own son,” said Metzerott. “Come, dinner is ready, let’s see how you ’vide that. There’s a splendid pot of soup, enough for a dozen; so never say your father can’t cook.” But scarcely had they seated themselves at the table when a heavy fall in the room above was followed by two shrill, feeble, feminine shrieks. Metzerott ran hastily up the stairs, which he had not ascended since the death of his wife, followed more slowly by Louis, to whom they were more familiar, though the silent pre-occupation of the sisters had not tended to encourage his visits. The Prices had recently taken a young niece to share their room, and earn her own bread if she could; and she it was who now lay upon the floor with her head upon Sally’s thin bosom, while Susan chafed the unconscious hand, and wept. She was evidently quite young, and the battle with want and toil, while it had wasted her form and paled her cheek, had not lasted long enough to destroy her youth and beauty. “She ain’t used to it yet, Mr. Metzerott,” said Sally Price half apologetically. “I’m sorry to disturb you at your dinner, sir, specially if it’s as good as it smells. Them that has ought to enjoy,” she added without a trace of bitterness. “I’m not caring for my dinner,” answered Metzerott roughly. “I’ll get her some whiskey; that’s what she wants.” There was silence in the room until he returned, except that, when Louis, not seeing any other way of being useful, wiped the eyes of the weeping Susan with his blue-checked gingham apron, she asked Sally if it wasn’t beautiful to see how that child favored his mother, to which Sally replied that the Lord knew it was indeed. The whiskey, which Metzerott procured at the nearest saloon, was vile stuff perhaps, but it brought back the color to Polly’s white lips. “She’ll do now, Mr. Metzerott, and thank you kindly,” said Miss Price. “We’ve got a little bread here we can give her; and this is Saturday, bless the Lord, so we’ll be able to buy more.” “More bread?” asked Metzerott, who, man-like, had never attained to a realizing sense of his lodgers’ domestic affairs, “is that all you’ve got to give her?” “It’s all we ever have,” replied Sally calmly. “Bless you, sir, what can you expect, with shirts five cents a dozen? But Polly, she was raised in the country, till her father and mother both died in one week with the typhoid, and her brother got married; and she come to the city to better herself, the Lord help her! So, what with not being used to sewing so constant, and nothing to eat, so to speak, and the smell of your dinner, Mr. Metzerott,—though I’m the last to begrutch it to you, sir, as works as hard as any, and has had your own troubles,—why, her head turned giddy, and she fainted clean away. That’s all, sir.”