David inquired again carefully about the sickness, to be sure that he might take Matilda there; and then they went. Sarah volunteered to guide them. But how shall I tell what they found. It was not far off, a few blocks only; in one of a tall row of tenement houses, grim and dismal, confronted by a like row on the other side of the street. Every one like every other. But inside, Matilda only remembered how unlike it was to all she had ever seen in her life before. Even Lilac lane was pleasantness and comfort comparatively. The house was sound indeed; there was no tumble-down condition of staircase or walls; the steps were safe, as they mounted flight after flight. But the entries were narrow and dirty; the stairways had never seen water; the walls were begrimed with the countless touches of countless dirty hands and with the sweeping by of foul draperies. Instinctively Matilda drew her own close round her. And as they went up and up, further from the street door, the air grew more close and unbearable; heavy with vapours and odours that had no chance at any time to feel the purification of a draught of free air. Poor cookery, soapsuds, unclean humanity and dirty still life, mingled their various smell in one heavy undistinguishable oppression.
"Oh, why do people build houses so high!" said little Matilda, as she toiled with her tired feet up the fourth staircase.
"For more rents, Miss Matilda," said Sarah who preceded them.
"For money!" said Matilda. "How tired the people must be that live here."
"They don't go down often," Sarah remarked.
At the very top of the house they were at last. There, in the end of the narrow entry-way, on the floor, was—what? A tumbled heap of dirty clothes, Matilda thought at first, and was about to pass it to go to the door which she supposed Sarah was making for; when Sarah stopped and drew aside a piece of netting that was stretched there. And then they saw, on the rags which served for his bed covers, the child they had come to see. A little, withered, shrunken piece of humanity, so nearly the colour of the rags he lay upon that his dark shock of matted curly hair made a startling spot in the picture.
"What's the matter, Sarah?" said Matilda in a distressed whisper.
"This is Mrs. Binn's boy, Miss Matilda, that you came to see."
"That? Why does he—why do they put him there?"
"Mrs. Binn's room is so small and so hot. It's there, Miss Matilda; you'll see it. When she's doing her washing and ironing, the place is so full of steam and so hot; and there ain't no room for the bed neither; and so she put Josh here."