They were there, side by side; the husband and the wife, the sister and the children--there, cold and dead. The light, as it fell upon them, revealed the wasted face of the artist, his closed eyelids, sunken far in their sockets, his dark hair glued to his forehead by the moisture of death; and the face of his young wife, with her fair cheek and sunny hair; and the sad, beautiful face of his sister, whose dark hair lay loosely upon her neck, while the long fringes of her eyelashes rested darkly upon her cheek. There was a look of anguish upon the face of John, as though Poverty had struck its iron seal upon him as he died; but the faces of Annie and Nelly were calm, smiling--very full of peace. The little children--the dark-haired boy, and bright-haired girl--slept quietly, their hands clasped and their cheeks laid close together. The poor artist, in the last wild hour of his life, had indeed _gathered them up in his arms and taken them with him_. They had all gone together. The furnace, with the fire put out, still remained in the center of the room. Such was the scene which the light disclosed; a scene incredible only to those who, unfamiliar with the ACTUAL of the large city, do not know that all the boasted triumphs of our modern civilization but miserably compensate for the POVERTY which it has created, and which stalks side by side with it, at every step of its progress, like a skeleton beside a painted harlot;--a poverty which gives to the phrase, "_I am poor!_" a despair unknown even in the darkest ages of the most barbarous past. "They are asleep,--asleep, certainly," cried Israel, falling back, "they can't be dead." The truth is, that Israel felt exceedingly uncomfortable. "They ain't asleep,--they _are_ dead," hoarsely replied Ninety-One, and he grasped Israel fiercely by the wrist. "They are dead, you dog. Look thar! That man owed you eight dollars for rent; he know'd if he didn't pay you this mornin' he'd be pitched into the street, dyin' as he was, with wife and children and sister at his heels. But he'd saved eight dollars, Israel, an' last night he crawled out to take a walk, an' found that his eight dollars was so much trash--found out that yer banks had broke, an' his eight dollars in yer bank notes, was wuss than nothin'. An' from yer bankin' house he went to a drug store, an' from a friend he got a quick an' quiet p'ison. He came home; he put it in the coffee, slyly; they all drank of it, an' slep'; an' then he filled the furnace with charcoal an' lighted it, an' _then_ they slep' all the better,--an' there they air! out o' yer clutches, dog--out o' yer fangs, hell-hound,--gone safe to kingdom come!" And he clutched Israel's wrist until the little man groaned with pain. "But how do you know he poisoned himself and these?" faltered Israel.