His form was light, his face thin and rather pale, and his languid eyes deeply sunken.  He was very far from being the able-bodied man Mr. Prescott had expected to find.  As the latter stepped into the miserable room where they were gathered, the light of expectation, mingled with the shadows of mute suffering, came into their countenances.  Mr. Prescott was a close observer, and saw, at a glance, the assumed sympathy-exciting face of the mendicant in each.

“You look rather poor here,” said he, as he took a chair, which the woman dusted with her dirty apron before handing it to him.

“Indeed, sir, and we are miserably off,” replied the woman, in a half whining tone.  “John, there, hasn’t done a stroke of work now for three months; and—­”

“Why not!” interrupted Mr. Prescott.

“My health is very poor,” said the man.  “I suffer much from pain in my side and back, and am so weak most of the time, that I can hardly creep about.”

“That is bad, certainly,” replied Mr. Prescott, “very bad.”  And as he spoke, he turned his eyes to the woman’s face, and then scanned the children very closely.

“Is that boy of yours doing anything?” he inquired.

“No, sir,” replied the mother.  “He’s too young to be of any account.”

“He’s thirteen, if my eyes do not deceive me.”

“Just a little over thirteen.”

“Does he go to school?”

“No sir.  He has no clothes fit to be seen in at school.”

“Bad—­bad,” said Mr. Prescott, “very bad.  The boy might be earning two dollars a week; instead of which he is growing up in idleness, which surely leads to vice.”

Gardiner looked slightly confused at this remark, and his wife, evidently, did not feel very comfortable under the steady, observant eyes that were on her.

“You seem to be in good health,” said Mr. Prescott, looking at the woman.

“Yes sir, thank God!  And if it wasn’t for that, I don’t know what we should all have done.  Everything has fallen upon me since John, there, has been ailing.”

Mr. Prescott glanced around the room, and then remarked, a little pleasantly: 

“I don’t see that you make the best use of your health and strength.”

The woman understood him, for the color came instantly to her face.

“There is no excuse for dirt and disorder,” said the visitor, more seriously.  “I once called to see a poor widow, in such a state of low health that she had to lie in bed nearly half of every day.  She had two small children, and supported herself and them by fine embroidery, at which she worked nearly all the time.  I never saw a neater room in my life than hers, and her children, though in very plain and patched clothing, were perfectly clean.  How different is all here; and yet, when I entered, you all sat idly amid this disorder, and—­shall I speak plainly—­filth.”

The woman, on whose face the color had deepened while Mr. Prescott spoke, now rose up quickly, and commenced bustling about the room, which, in a few moments, looked far less in disorder.  That she felt his rebuke, the visiter regarded as a good sign.