He had begun to teach the boy to write that he might communicate with him in that fashion, but as yet Tode had not progressed far enough to make communication with him easy, though he was beginning to read quite readily the bold, clear handwriting of the bishop.
This morning, the bishop, noting the boy's pale cheeks and heavy eyes, proposed a walk instead of the writing lesson. Tode was delighted to go, and the two set off together. Now the boy had an opportunity to see yet farther into the heart and life of this good, great man. They went on and on, away from the wide streets and handsome houses, into the tenement house district, and finally into an old building, where many families found shelter--such as it was. Up one flight after another of rickety stairs the bishop led the boy. At last he stopped and knocked at a door on a dark landing.
The door was opened by a woman whose eyes looked as if she had forgotten how to smile, but a light flashed into them at sight of her visitor. She hurriedly dusted a chair with her apron, and as the bishop took it he lifted to his knee one of the little ones clinging to the mother's skirts. There were four little children, but one lay, pale and motionless on a bed in one corner of the room.
"She is sick?" inquired the bishop, his voice full of sympathy, as he looked at the small, wan face.
The woman's eyes filled with tears.
"Yes," she answered, "I doubt I'm goin' to lose her, an' I feel I ought to be glad for her sake--but I can't." She bent over the little form and kissed the heavy eyelids.
"Tell me all about it, my daughter," the bishop said, and the woman poured out her story--the old story of a husband who provided for his family after a fashion, when he was sober, but left them to starve when the drink demon possessed him. He had been away now for three weeks, and there was no money for medicine for the sick child, or food for the others.
Before the story was told the bishop's hand was in his pocket and he held out some money to the woman, saying,
"Go out and buy what you need. It will be better for you to get it, than for me to. The breath of air will do you good, and I will see to the children until you come back."
She hesitated for a moment, then with a word of thanks, threw a shawl over her head and was gone.