At the ringing of a bell, the music changed to a low monotonous plaint and the curtain slowly rose on the tableau.
There was a large, bare, empty room; its sole furniture was a table and three chairs; in one corner was a pile of shavings; upon them sat, crouching with her knees drawn up, the pale and worn figure of a girl; beside her were the crutches which showed that she was a cripple; her white cheek was wasted and hollow; her chin was thrust forward as if she was in suffering almost intolerable. During the tableau she moved not, save to swing slowly backward and forward upon the shavings which formed her bed.
On the table, for it was night, was a candle in a ginger-beer bottle, and two girls sat at the table working hard; their needles were running a race with starvation; their clothes were in rags; their hair was gathered up in careless knots; their cheeks were pale; they were pinched and cold and feeble with hunger and privation.
Said one of the women present, "Twopence an hour, they can make. Poor things! poor things!"
"Dick," whispered the cobbler, "you make a note of it; I guess what's coming."
The spectators shivered with sympathy. They knew so well what it meant; some of them had themselves dwelt amid these garrets of misery and suffering.
Then voices were heard outside in the street singing.
They were the waits, and they sang the joyful hymns of Christmas. When the working-girls heard the singing, they paid no heed whatever, plying the needle fast and furiously; and the girl in the shavings paid no heed, slowly swinging to and fro in her pain and hunger. At the sight of this callous contempt, this disregard of the invitation to rejoice, as if there were neither hope nor joy for such as themselves, with only a mad desire to work for something to stay the dreadful pains of hunger, some of the women among the spectators wept aloud.
Then the waits went away; and there was silence again.