Danny continued on across the dimly lit court into the dark entrance of the rear tenement. At the door of the room which Miss Barstow's note had described Danny knocked softly, and was admitted by her, a tall, plainly dressed, handsome young woman, whose kindly face was at that moment clouded by anxiety. She seemed surprised to see the messenger alone, and after taking the bundle from him and placing it in a chair, she stepped out in the hall, closing the door so that their voices would not disturb the sick people inside, and heard Danny's story of the maid's fright and desertion.
Miss Barstow was silent for some time before she said, and there was no anger in her voice:
"Perhaps I was wrong to send for her. I would not have done so, but all my assistants are busy. But," she added, after a pause, "I must have some assistance until the doctor comes again."
"Say, what's de matter wid me helpin' you, lady?" asked Danny, promptly.
Miss Barstow looked at him in the half-light the hall lamp gave, and then said, quickly, "Yes. Go and put my maid on a car that will take her home, and then come back here."
Danny did so, and was pretty soon back in the sick-room with Miss Barstow and her two patients. The room was poor, very poor, but better than the one he had lived in with his uncle. There were a bed and a cot, some chairs, a rough table, a cook stove, and a few cooking and table dishes.
In the bed was an Italian woman, and in the cot her daughter, a girl about twelve years old. Both were sick with a fever only too common in the tenement district. The husband and father was a fruit peddler, who had what is called an "all-night" stand on the Bowery. The man and his wife alternated with each other in attending the stand, and it was exposure to the cold wet nights that had brought on the woman's fever. The girl had been a scholar in the day-school for tenement children in Miss Barstow's Mission, but she had attempted to take her mother's place at the stand when the woman was taken sick, and she, too, soon came down with the fever.
It was while making inquiries about her absent scholar that Miss Barstow had found the patients both in bed, and having only the rough care the man could give them during the few hours he could leave his stand. Danny was soon at work under Miss Barstow's orders, and both the patients had some dainty food and wine, and every attention to make them comfortable. Before the Doctor arrived both mother and daughter were sleeping quietly, and Danny found himself whispering the story of his life to Miss Barstow, who, it seemed to him, had the kindest way of asking questions and understanding what he told her of any person in the world. The Doctor smiled when he came in at midnight and saw them, and Danny blushed proudly when the lady told the Doctor that her messenger had proved to be a good nurse and a very interesting companion.
The Doctor ordered Miss Barstow to go home, saying he would wait there until the husband came. When Miss Barstow had paid Danny, she asked him which way he was going. "I'm goin' to see you home, sure," Danny answered, gallantly.
They had left the tenements, and were walking up Roosevelt Street, when a man standing by a lamp-post stared at Danny, and then exclaimed: