Docilely he followed her out of the building, wondering where he was being taken, caring little, so long as she was with him. This dark-eyed girl, with her serious views and charming manner, had already taken a strong hold of the young man. She was utterly different from any girl he had ever known, and cogitating secretly with himself, he came to the conclusion that the comparison was in her favor.
Quite unconscious that she was the object of her companion's thoughts, Paula hurried along the narrow, slippery pavements, crowded with pale-faced women and children, obstructed by all kinds of wagons and hucksters' pushcarts. Stopping for a moment at a delicatessen shop, she purchased some ham, eggs, butter, and bread, and then hastened on again until she came to a big, dreary tenement.
"We go in here," she said, quite out of breath after the quick walk. "It is the home of one of my favorite pupils, Annie Hughes. They are wretchedly poor. The father is an incorrigible drunkard and the mother is bedridden. Only the devotion of her child keeps her alive. I want you to see Annie. She is only twelve, but she does the work of two women. She cannot play like other children of her age, yet she never complains. She is entirely devoted to her mother. It's a dreadful hovel they live in. You'll be shocked at what you see, but don't show surprise. Mrs. Hughes is a decent woman, and it will only distress her. She's consumptive and can't live long. If she dies I shall adopt and educate Annie as my own."
They entered a dark, narrow, forbidding-looking hallway, with walls thickly begrimed with the accumulated filth of years, and so cracked that the plaster in places had fallen out in huge chunks, exposing the wood lathing. At the far end was a winding, ricketty staircase, every stair filthy with refuse and rubbish, and only dimly lighted by small windows that did not look as if they had been washed since the house was built. It was a steep climb to the sixth floor, and both were out of breath when they reached the top. Paula approached a door, and knocked.
"Is that you, Annie?" called out a feeble voice.
"No, Mrs. Hughes—it is I, Miss Marsh, with a friend."
Without waiting for further invitation, they pushed open the door and went in.
A shocking scene of neglect and squalor met their eyes. In a dimly lighted, poorly ventilated room about fourteen feet square, on a tumble-down bed, covered with filthy rags, lay a woman past middle age, apparently asleep. Her eyes were closed and she did not take the trouble to turn her face as the visitors entered. The place, living room and bedchamber in one, was indescribably and hopelessly dirty and littered with broken furniture and rubbish of every description. It was really the attic of the house, the low ceiling formed by the roof sloping down to the front, where a small window looked into the street below. Half the glass panes being broken and patched up with paper, only a poor light entered the room, and this helped to partly conceal the dirt-encrusted floor, torn, filthy bedding, and greasy stove piled up with unwashed dishes. The foul air reeked with offensive odors of decaying vegetation and bad drainage.
The woman on the bed started to cough, a violent cough which shook the bed. When the spasm had passed she turned to see who had come in. Paula she knew, but Tod was a stranger, yet her face expressed neither surprise or embarrassment. The poor are accustomed to unceremonious visits from Salvation Army workers and others, and they are so wretched that they have ceased to care about anything. A faint smile came over the invalid's pale, wan face.
"I thought it was Annie," she said. "She's been a long time gone. I had to send her to the Dispensary to get some more medicine. My cough is very bad to-day."