"Yis, sorr, that she was. She ockepied me back siccond floor, an' a swater lady niver walked the earth, ef she was huntin' work fer her pretty, saft hands to do, what she couldn't get nowhere, sorr, more's the pity. Would yez like to coom up an' tak a luik at the rum? It's as nate a rum as ye'll find in the sthreet, ef I do say so as shouldn't, though a bit small fer two. But there's the frunt siccond floor'll be vacant to-morry, at only a shillun more the wake."
Daniel held up the fragment of cloth.
"It's the frock she wore to school," he said. He spoke hoarsely and handled it as though it belonged to the dead. It seemed terrible to him to have found where she had been, and not find her.
They followed the old woman upstairs, scarcely hearing her dissertation, nor realizing that she took them for possible roomers.
The room was neat, as the woman had said, but bare—so bare and gloomy! Nothing but blank walls and chimneys to be seen from the tiny window, where the sun streamed in unhindered across the meagre bed and deal chair and table which were the only furnishings. Charles's heart grew tender with pity, and his eyes filled with tears, as he looked upon it all and realized that his wife had slept there on that hard bed, and had for a time called that dreary spot home. He glanced involuntarily out of the window, noting the garbage in the back yards below, and the unpleasant odors that arose, and remembered the warnings and precautions with which the papers had been filled even before the cholera had come so close to them. He shuddered to think what might have happened to Dawn.
"But where has she gone?" he asked the old woman.
"Yes, that's what we want to know," said Dan.
"Yes, where!" barked Rags behind the old woman's heels, which made her jump and exclaim, "Och, the varmint!" until Dan called the dog to his side.
"She's gone. Lift me, an' no rason at all at all, savin' thet she couldn't find wark, an' her money most gahn. I sez to her as she went out that dor, sez I, 'Yez betther go hum to yer friends ef yez kin find 'em. It's bad times fer a pretty un like you, an' you with yer hands that saft;' but she only smiled at me like a white rose, an' was away, sayin' she'd see, and she thankin' me all the whilst fer the little I'd been able to do fer her—me that's a widder an' meself to kape."
Nothing more could they get from the good woman, though they tried both with money and questions. Dawn had been there for two months, and had gone out every day hunting work. She had come back every night weary and discouraged, but always with a smile. At last she had come home with a newspaper, her face whiter than usual, and, as the old widow had put it, said: "'Mrs. O'Donnell, I'm away in the marn, fer I'm thinkin' it's best;' and away she goes."