THE DANCING SUNBEAM.
In a dark, narrow street of the city stood a dingy tenement house. Many people lived within, and called it by the dear name of home; yet it was very different from the luxurious homes of the rich, surrounded by pleasant gardens, filled with costly pictures, and a thousand beautiful things very delightful to possess. Nor was it like the comfortable homes of the middle class, where the fire burns brightly in the polished grate, and the table is always plentifully spread. Oh, no! The people in the tenement house were all poor, from the first floor front to the attic back, which was the worst of all.
It was the rainy season, and through the roof, round the chimney, and between the cracked and loosened weather-boards, came the driving rain.
Then there was a continual opening and shutting of doors; and at the common entrance, all day long and far into the night, there was somebody always coming in, or going out, letting in the chilling blast, that rushed through the muddy halls, and into the rooms, pinching the sick and old in a pitiless way.
Altogether, it was not a pleasant place to live in; but most of the people in the tenement house had always been poor, and had learned to be content with what the day brought them, so they were not hungry. Only one in the house had known the luxury of being very rich, and she was now the poorest of them all.
Just under the roof she sat, wearily stitching upon the coarse work that must bring bread to her little child. How the rain pattered and clattered upon the roof, as the daintily-bred woman bent above her unaccustomed task, thinking over the old thoughts, that made the present more than desolate.
“It was not so once,” said the rain. “The old home, how comfortable and beautiful it was! There you were a fair lady with lily-white hands; now, you are the same, only one can not think so. There are silver threads in your hair, and your hands are too red. People say: ‘What a pity the woman with the pretty child is so poor!’ but they do not help you.”
“The old home! the old home!” echoed the sad thoughts all day long and into the still hours of the night.
In the corner of the room sat a little child, playing with a doll, made of an old apron; yet, to the child it was “the pretty Dolladine.”