"Nora (a little sick sister) had been failing, and to-night Rose planned to buy her 'something with a taste to it,' and looked at the sausages hanging in long links with a sudden reckless determination to get enough for all. She was faint with hunger, and staggered as she passed a basement restaurant, from which came savory smells, snuffed longingly by some half-starved children. Her turn was long in coming; and as she laid her bundle on the counter, she saw suddenly that her needle had 'jumped,' and that half an inch or so of band required re-sewing. As she looked, the foreman's knife slipped under the place, and in a moment half the band had been ripped. 'That's no good,' he said. 'You are getting botchier all the time.' 'Give it to me,' Rose pleaded. 'I'll do it over.' 'Take it if you like,' he said indifferently, 'but there is no pay for that kind o' work.' He had counted her money as he spoke, and Rose cried out as she saw the sum: 'Do you mean you will cheat me of the whole dozen, because half an inch on one has gone wrong?' 'Call it what you like,' he said. 'R. & Co. ain't going to send out anything but first-class work. Stand out of the way and let the next have a chance. There's your three dollars and forty cents.' "Rose went out silently, choking down rash words that would have lost her work altogether; but as she left the dark stairs, and felt again the cutting wind from the river, she stood still, something more than despair on her face. The children could hardly fare worse without her than with her. The river could not be colder than this cold world that gave her no chance, and that had no place for anything but rascals. "She turned toward it as the thought came; but some one had her arm, and she cried out suddenly, and tried to wrench away. 'Easy now,' a voice said. 'You're breakin' your heart for trouble, an' here I am in the nick o' time. Come with me an' you'll have no more of it, for my pocket's full to-night, and that's more than it'll be in the mornin' if you do n' take me in tow.' It was a sailor from a merchantman just in, and Rose looked at him for a moment. Then she took his arm and walked toward Roosevelt Street. It might be dishonor, but it was certainly food and warmth for the children, and what did it matter? She had fought her fight for twenty years, and it had been a vain struggle." [Illustration: A BOSTON "BRIDGE OF SIGHS."] When she poured her heart-breaking story into Helen Campbell's ears, she said, "Let God Almighty judge who's to blame most--I that was driven, or them that drove me to the pass I'm in."