Anna was too much absorbed to observe where her father was leading her, till they entered a narrow, dark alley, and turned up a broken, winding stair. When they had reached the top, Mr. Byerley desired them to wait outside a door at which he knocked, till he should come to them. When the door was opened from within, the girls obtained a view, for an instant, of a wretched apartment inhabited by a sick man, who was stretched on a low bedstead, without curtains, and furnished only with a rug. Pain and want were visible in the face of the sufferer; and the boy who opened the door likewise appeared half-famished.
“O, papa!” said Mary, when Mr. Byerley joined them again in a few minutes, “who are these poor people?”
“They are foreigners, my dear, in the extreme of distress.”
Anna’s attention was immediately fixed.
“Foreigners, papa? Where do they come from?”
“From Italy. The man is an image-maker, whom you may have seen about the streets with his board. He maintained himself and his son by his ingenuity; and even contrived to put the boy to school, where he made good progress; but it is all at an end now. The poor man was seized with a rheumatic fever some weeks ago, and when he will be better there is no saying; for no complaint is more tedious. His money is all gone; and they have both parted with all their clothes but what they had on before they applied to any body for assistance. When I first saw them, yesterday, they seemed almost starved.”
“Why did you not tell us, papa? We might have done a great deal for them by this time.”
“I wished first to learn all the particulars of their story, and at the same time to give them the pleasure of conversing with a countryman; and therefore I took Elvi to see them last night. He is satisfied of the truth of their statements, and will obtain some relief, if possible, from the fund for the relief of distressed foreigners in London. He had nothing else to give, I am sorry to say; but his kindness and his promise have cheered his poor countryman, and done him more good, he says, than medicine. You see, Anna, we must not bestow all our compassion on Elvi: he is not the most unfortunate of emigrants, hard as is the emigrant’s lot.”
Anna shook her head. Her father continued.
“Elvi himself said that such a scene as this made him ashamed of dwelling on his own sorrows.”