Faith Gartney's Girlhood

between Lif

dsw

s at home. In her little room of fourteen feet square, up a dismal flight of stairs, sitting, in the light of a single lamp, by her air-tight stove, w

ht be her daily way of going on. On the broad ledges of the windows, where any other woman would have had a plant or two, there was no array of geraniums or verbenas-not even a seedling orange t

p for a

up. She was that much-enduring, all-f

the street is to the handcart man or the hackney coachman. It was only the place where she might receive orders; whence she might go forth to the toilsomeness and gloom

ality that had lost their own vigor, and were fain to beg a portion of hers. Her face was thin and rigid, too-molded to no mere graces of expression-but with a strong outline, and a habitual compression about the mouth that told you, when you had once learned somewhat of its meaning, of the firm will that would go straight forward to its obje

the stair, and then a knock of

me

That was to be kept waiting no longer for whatever visitor it migh

Sampson; don't l

to! What sen

w pat

ing up about any others. Any old woman can make gruel, and feed a baby with catnip t

al case of typhoid, and nobody in the house that un

I was ba

the pinch. I warned them you'd go as so

othing wanted of me but to go to bed at nine o'clock, and sleep t

put on your bonnet. There

an?" asked M

erson Gartney,

f his

re so. Family all f

him to myself. One crazy patient is enough, a

speedily installed, or rather installed herself, in her office. Dr. Grac

ittle dressing room adjoining, and given her a résumé of the treatment thus far followed, with the doctor's last directions to herself-"you

ression of almost childlike rest and relief came

ed. "Shall I send

you get through. I don't want any special providings. I take my nibbles anyhow, as I go along. Y

me how he s

barely bad enough to keep me he

eech comforted, while they so

things were about to be removed; "and keep the chocolate hot, downstairs. Faithie-s

ss Sampson came down, and

re. She won't stay a minute, if we begin to get better too fast. Yes-I will take a bit of chicken, I think; and-what have you there that's hot?" as the maid came in with the chocol

mstick! Miss Faithie-here is a woman who makes it a principle to go through th

He had found Faith sitting on the front stairs, at midnight, when he came in at a

doc

his is no place for you.

xcept Mahala. And I don't dare stay

t. There she stayed, passively, till he came back. And then he told her kindly and gravely, that if she could be quite quiet, and firm, she might go and lie on th

re was Miss Sampson

did so, and wondered what, and how much Dr. Gr

vary nice supper," said she, t

s eat drumsticks," w

uaintance, they went upstairs; and the house, under the n