had got worse on the whole.  Whereas Waymark had here and there been successful in suppressing the grosser forms of uncleanliness by threats of expulsion, and at times by the actual enforcement of his threat, no such supervision had of late been exercised.  There were very few houses in which the air was at all tolerable; in many instances the vilest odours hung about the open door-ways.  To pass out of Elm Court into the wider streets around was like a change to the freshness of woods and fields.  And the sources of this miasma were only too obvious.

The larger houses which made up Litany Lane had underground cellars; in the court there were fortunately no such retreats.  On entering one of these former houses, the two were aware of an especially offensive odour rising from below the stairs.  Pursuing, however, their plan of beginning at the garrets, they went up together.  In the room at the top they came upon a miserable spectacle.  On something which, for want of another name, was probably called a bed, there lay a woman either already dead or in a state of coma, and on the floor sat two very young children, amusing themselves with a dead kitten, their only toy.  Mr. Woodstock bent over the woman and examined her.  He found that she was breathing, though in a slow and scarcely perceptible way; her eyes were open, but expressed no consciousness.  The slightly-parted lips were almost black, and here and there on her face there seemed to be a kind of rash.  Mr. Woodstock’s companion, after taking one glance, drew hastily back.

“Looks like small-pox,” he said, in an alarmed voice.  “I wouldn’t stand so near, sir, if I was you.”

“Isn’t there any one to look to her?” said Abraham.  Then turning to one of the children, “Where’s your father?” he asked.

“Dono,” was the little fellow’s indifferent reply.

“Are you alone?”

“Dono.”

They went down to the floor below, and there found a woman standing at her door.

“What’s the matter with her up there?” asked Mr. Woodstock.

“She’s very bad, sir.  Her Susan’s gone to get a order for the parish doctor, I b’lieve.  I was just a-goin’ to look after the children when you came up.  I’ve only just come ’ome myself, you see.”

“What’s that horrible stench down below?”

“I didn’t notice nothink, sir,” said the woman, looking over the banisters as if the odour might be seen.

“Any one living in the kitchen?”

“There was some one, I b’lieve, sir, but I don’t exac’ly know if they’s there yet.”

Presently they reached the region below.  In absolute darkness they descended steps which were covered with a sort of slime, and then, by striking a light, found themselves in front of a closed door.  Opening this, they entered a vile hole where it could scarcely be said to be daylight, so thickly was the little window patched with filth.  Groping about in the stifling atmosphere, they discovered in one corner a mass of indescribable matter, from which arose, seemingly, the worst of the effluvia.