While this altercation was in progress the poor girl--thoroughly ashamed to find herself the center of a public broil--covered her face with her hands and wept as if her heart would break. "Take my arm," said a voice at her side; "there will be a fight. Quick, my dear Miss, you must get out of this as quick as possible." The speaker was a short and slender man, wrapped in a Spanish mantle, and his hat was drawn low over his forehead. The girl seized his arm, and while the crowd formed a circle around Grabb and the brown bang-up, they contrived to pass unobserved from the store. Presently the poor girl was hurrying along Canal street, her hand still clasping the arm of the stranger in the cloak. "Bad business! Bad business!" he said in a quick, abrupt tone. "That Grabb's a scoundrel. Here's Broadway, my dear, and I must bid you good-night. Good-night,--good-night." And he left the poor girl at the corner of Broadway and Canal street. He was lost in the crowd ere she was aware of his departure. She was left alone, on the street corner, in the midst of that torrent of life; and it was not until some moments had elapsed that she could fully comprehend her desolate condition. "It was the last five dollars I had in the world! What can I do! In the name of God, what can I do!" She looked up Broadway--it extended there, one glittering track of light. "Not a friend, and not a dollar in the world!" She looked down Broadway--far into the distance it extended, its million lights over-arched by a dull December sky. "Not a friend and not a dollar!" She turned down Broadway with languid and leaden steps. A miserably clad and heart-broken girl, she glided among the crowds, which lined the street, like a specter through the mazes of a banquet. Poor girl! Down Broadway, until the Park is passed, and the huge Astor House glares out upon the darkness from its hundred windows. Down Broadway, until you reach the unfinished pile of Trinity Church, where heaps of lumber and rubbish appear among white tombstones. Turn from Broadway and stride this narrow street which leads to the dark river: your home is there. Back of Trinity Church, in Greenwich street, we believe, there stands on this December night a four storied edifice, tenanted, only a few years ago, by a wealthy family. Then it was the palace of a man who counted his wealth by hundreds of thousands. Now it is a palace of a different sort; look at it, as from garret to cellar it flashes with light in every window. The cellar is the home of ten families. The first floor is occupied as a beer "saloon;" you can hear men getting drunk in three or four languages, if you will only stand by the window for a moment. Twenty persons live on the second floor. Fifteen make their home on the third floor. The fourth floor is tenanted by nineteen human beings. The garret is divided into four apartments; one of these has a garret-window to itself, and this is the home of the poor girl.