"It is wicked to have said such a thing!" she thought, as she walked rapidly along over the creaking snow.
"I will tell her it is not true,--it never could be true." The path through the ragged, unkempt garden in front of the tenement house was so trodden that the snow was packed and hard.

The gate swung back with a jar and clatter, and two limp frosted hens flew shrieking out from the shelter of the ash-heap behind it.

The door was open, and Helen could see the square of the entry, papered, where the plaster had not been broken away, with pale green castles embowered in livid trees.

On either side was the entrance to a tenement; a sagging nail in one of the door-posts held a coat and a singed and battered hat.

Here Helen knocked.
Mrs.Davis was in the small inner room, but came out as her visitor entered, wiping the soapsuds from her bare arms on her dingy gingham apron.