“Well, bring 'em in. Hold on, I'll go meself.”
“She would come, Tom,” said Mrs. Todd, unwinding her shawl from her head and shoulders; “an' ye mustn't blame me, fer it's none of my doin's. Walk in, mum; ye can speak to her yerself. Why, where is she?”—looking out of the door into the darkness. “Oh, here ye are; I thought ye'd skipped.”
“Do ye remember me?” said the woman, stepping into the room, her gaunt face looking more wretched under the flickering light of the candle than it had done in the morning. “I'm the new-comer in the tenements. Ye were in to see my girl th'other night. We're in great trouble.”
“She's not dead?” said Tom, sinking into a chair.
“No, thank God; we've got her still wid us; but me man's come home to-night nigh crazy. He's a-walkin' the floor this minute, an' so I goes to Mrs. Todd, an' she come wid me. If he loses the job now, we're in the street. Only two weeks' work since las' fall, an' the girl gettin' worse every day, and every cint in the bank gone, an' hardly a chair lef' in the place. An' I says to him, 'I'll go meself. She come in to see Katie th' other night; she'll listen to me.' We lived in Newark, mum, an' had four rooms and a mahogany sofa and two carpets, till the strike come in the clock-factory, an' me man had to quit; an' then all winter—oh, we're not used to the likes of this!”—covering her face with her shawl and bursting into tears.
Tom had risen to her feet, her face expressing the deepest sympathy for the woman, though she was at a loss to understand the cause of her visitor's distress.
“Is yer man fired?” she asked.
“No, an' wouldn't be if they'd let him alone. He's sober an' steady, an' never tastes a drop, and brings his money home to me every Saturday night, and always done; an' now they”—
“Well, what's the matter, then?” Tom could not stand much beating about the bush.
“Why, don't ye know they've give notice?” she said in astonishment; then, as a misgiving entered her mind, “Maybe I'm wrong; but me man an' all of 'em tells me ye're a-buckin' ag'in' Mr. McGaw, an' that ye has the haulin' job at the brewery.”