Just at this moment a poor lad fell, and broke his jug all to pieces." "Did he! And less the pity for him.

Why did'nt he walk along like an orderly, dacent body?
Why didn't he look 'till his steps ?" "Biddy," said I, seeing that it was useless to hold an argument with her,--"Do you go this minute and throw ashes all over the pavement." "Ashes on the clane pavement! Mrs.Smith!" "Yes, Biddy; and do it at once.

There! Somebody else has fallen." I sprung to the window in time to see a woman on the pavement, and the contents of her basket of marketing scattered all around her.
"Go this minute and throw ashes over the pavement!" I called to Biddy in a voice of command.
The girl left the room with evident reluctance.

The idea of scattering ashes over her clean pavement, was, to her, no very pleasant one.
It seemed to me, as I sat looking down from my windows upon the slippery flags, and noted the difficulty which pedestrians had to cross them safely, that Biddy would never appear with her pan of ashes.
"Why don't the girl do as I directed ?" had just passed, in an impatient tone, from my lips, when two well dressed men came in view, one at each extremity of the sheet of ice.

They were approaching, and stepped with evident unconsciousness of danger, upon the treacherous surface.