What spirit deeper than her character has hitherto displayed stirs the mill-girl in the bed next to me? Possibly the tragedy in the other bed; possibly the tragedy of her own youth. At all events, whatever burden is on her, her cross is heavy! She murmurs in her dreams, in a voice more mature, more serious than any tone of hers has indicated: "Oh, my God!" It is a strange cry--call--appeal. It rings solemn to me as I lie and watch and pity. Hours of night which should be to the labourer peaceful, full of repose after the day, drag along from nine o'clock, when we went to bed, till three. At three Mrs. White falls into a doze. I envy her. Over me the vermin have run riot; I have killed them on my neck and my arms. When it seemed that flesh and blood must succumb, and sleep, through sheer pity, take hold of us, a stirring begins in the kitchen below which in its proximity seems a part of the very room we occupy. The landlady, Mrs. Jones, has arisen; she is making her fire. At a quarter to four Mrs. Jones begins her frying; at four a deep, blue, ugly smoke has ascended the stairway to us. This smoke is thick with odours--the odour of bad grease and bad meat. Its cloud conceals the beds from me and I can scarcely pierce its curtain to look through the window. It settles down over the beds like a creature; it insinuates itself into the clothes that hang upon the wall. So permeating is it that the odour of fried food clings to everything I wear and haunts me all day. I can hear the sputtering of the saucepan and the fall and flap of the pieces of meat as she drops them in to fry. _I know what they are_, for I have seen them the night before--great crimson bits of flesh torn to pieces and arranged in rows by the fingers of a ragged Negro as he crouched by the kitchen table. This preparation continues for an hour: it takes an abnormally long time to cook abnormally bad food! Long before five the clock of Excelsior rings and the cry of the mill is heard waking whomsoever might be lucky enough to be asleep. Mrs. Jones calls Molly. "Molly!" The girl murmurs and turns. "Come, you-all git up; you take so powerful long to dress yo'self!" Long to dress! It is difficult to see how that would be possible. She rises reluctantly, yawning, sighing; lifts her scarcely rested body, puts on her stockings and her shoes and the dirty wrapper. Her hair is untouched, her face unwashed, but she is ready for the day! Mrs. White has actually fallen asleep, the small roll, her baby, curled up close to her back. Molly's summons is mine as well. I am a mill-hand with her. I rise and repeat my ablutions of the evening before. Unhooking the tin basin, possessing myself of a bit of soap on the kitchen stairs, I wash my face and hands. Although the water is dipped from the pail on which a scum has formed, still it is so much more cool, refreshing and stimulating than anything that has come in contact with me for hours that it is a positive pleasure.