“What is the matter with him?” asked Peter, in a low voice.
“Nothing but old age,” replied the doctor.
“And what has he to live upon?” continued Peter.
“Only the wages of his weak and sickly boy,” said the doctor, “who leaves him in the morning to go to his work, and returns at night when his day’s work is done. The long hours between he spends here alone.”
The old man put his hand upon his breast, saying that he felt pain and a smothering feeling there.
“And what do you do, my old friend,” asked Peter, “while you are lying here all by yourself, if you want anything? Suppose you want a drink?”
“I do without it,” replied the old man.
The doctor leaned over the bed and talked kindly to him, comforting him, and then placed a piece of money in his trembling hand.
As he and Peter came down the winding stair together the doctor said in a low voice, “It is not likely he will suffer long.”
When they regained the street, the doctor told Peter there was yet another visit they could pay that same afternoon if they quickened their steps; and he led the way to a neighborhood not far off, where some great cotton-mills stood. Here, in a small house, and living in one little room, were two old women who were sisters. A tiny stove stood in the room with about a double handful of coal burning in it. A bucket partly filled with coal (which they bought by the bucket only) stood beside it. A single strip of rag carpet lay along the middle of the well-scrubbed floor.