Our Boa^'dino-Housc.
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��became immersed badly in debt, whereat her household goods were knocked down under the hammer. I have heard it definitely stated that she is lettina: lodijino-s on Lvmau
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street — last sad scene of all.
Although Mrs. Chick once kept a carriage, once said her prayers, I can best liken her case to a disabled ship that has dropped out of fire, and is lost sight of in the din and smoke of the enoragino; vessels, and though it keeps on the surface awhile it soon goes to the bottom.
80 there are hundreds of women, who once moved in the front lines of society, who have gone down, like Mrs. Chick, step by step, until lost altogether in the noise and bustle of this great crowded city.
One fancies he sees such shivering on street corners in winter, unclad for the cold ; and, as he looks into their haggard, careworn faces, he reads the story of their sins and suf- ferings.
With what infinite secret satisfac- tion we say, " Jones is growing old," "Smith is aging fast," "Robinson wo n't live long." " Brown has seen his best days," we say with a chuckle. How we like to roll those sweet mor- sels on our tongue.
Having disposed of Mrs. Chick, a la mode of a novelist, a few words touch- ing her boarders will be in order. The occupant of the front flat is a corpulent lady who goes to the Bap- tists. This sainted soul divorced her first husband because of his Orthodox views, marrying for her second liege one Smalls, a haberdasher on Hanover street, a stout adherent to the immer- sion principle. He is an asthmatic, acquiescing little old man, in red
��German whiskers, mortally in fe^r of his wife, to whom he is habitually deferential. This morbid fear is en- hanced the more because he carries a small insurance on his life. Mr. Smalls imagines that she cares more about that than about him.
Smalls smokes, which incessant practice has originated a virulent can- cer on his tongue. Dead set against smokers the feminine side of the house is. He protests to her that he has renounced the dirty habit ; but she always detects by the peculiar odor in his habiliments a painful lack of veracity in these statements, whereat, being much the more muscular, she will shake him till he roars for mercy, and unfaithfully promises for the hundredth time to desist entirely from the abominable practice. Take it all ways, Mr. Smalls is a terribly wretch- ed, abused, and henpecked lord.
The lodgers on the second floor are a nondescript Hibernian and wife. He comes home in his cups occasion- ally, and beats his wife accordingly, till the roundsman bears him away to the station, to which institution he is indeed no stranger. He usually re- mains in durance vile about one week, until his dear wife, who tugs and la- bors — albeit she is endeavoring to meet the payments on her teeth, which she has bought on the instalment plan — appears and releases him, at which he is inexpressibly grateful, and they go home as good and flip- pant as two old maids over a dish of tea.
The top tenants are a middle-aged couple for whom my heart goes out in sympathy. They once had a little daughter, so angelic, so gentle, she seemed a being straved from that bet-
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