"You can't come in, I tell you! I've cleared the decks for action. Not another person but the doctor and nurse are going to pass over this threshold!"
"Look here, Ike Lavinski," cried Nance, indignantly, "you know as well as me that there are things that ought to be done up there at the Snawdors'!"
"They'll have to go undone," said Isaac, firmly.
Nance wasted no more time in futile argument. She waited for an opportune moment when Ike's back was turned; then she slipped around the corner of the house and threaded her way down the dark passage, until she reached the fire-escape. There were no lights in the windows as she climbed past them, and the place seemed ominously still.
At the third platform she scrambled over a wash-tub and a dozen plaster casts of Pocahontas,—Mr. Snawdor's latest venture in industry,—and crawled through the window into the kitchen. It was evident at a glance that Mrs. Snawdor had at last found that long-talked-of day off and had utilized it in cleaning up. The room didn't look natural in its changed condition. Neither did Mrs. Snawdor, sitting in the gloom in an attitude of deep dejection. At sight of Nance at the window, she gave a cry of relief.
"Thank the Lord, you've come!" she said. "Can you beat this? Havin' to climb up the outside of yer own house like a fly! They've done sent Fidy to the pest-house, an' scattered the other childern all over the neighborhood, an' they got me fastened up here, like a hen in a coop!"
"How is he?" whispered Nance, glancing toward the inner room.
"Ain't a thing the matter with him, but the lumbago. Keeps on complainin' of a pain in his back. I never heard of such a hullabaloo about nothin' in all my life. They'll be havin' me down with smallpox next. How long you goin' to be here?"
Nance, taking off her hat and coat, announced that she had come to stay.
Mrs. Snawdor heaved a sigh of relief.