“Faix!  And how was I to get it clane, mim, widout wather?” coolly returned Biddy.

“Clean!”

“Yes, mim, clane.”

“There was no crying necessity to have it clean to-day.  Didn’t you see—­”

“It’s Sathurday, mim,” interrupted Biddy, in a voice that showed the argument in her mind to be unanswerable.  “We always wash the pavement on Sathurday.”

“But it doesn’t do to wash the pavement,” I returned, now trying to put a little reason into her head, “when it is so cold that water will freeze as soon as it touches the ground.  The bricks become as slippery as glass, and people can’t walk on them without falling.”

“Och!  And what hev we till do wid the paple.  Lot ’em look ’till their steps.”

“But, Biddy, that won’t do.  People don’t expect to find pavements like glass; and they slip, often, while unaware of danger.  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 (sic) exteremtiy of the sheet of ice.  They were approaching, and stepped with evident unconsciousness of danger, upon the treacherous surface.  I had a kind of presentiment that one or both would fall, and my instinct was not at fault.  Suddenly the heels of one flew up, and he struck the pavement with a concussion that sprung his hat from his head, and sent it some feet in the air.  In his efforts to recover himself, his legs became entangled in those of the other, and over he went, backwards, his head striking the ground with a terrible shock.

I started from the window, feeling, for an instant, faint and sick.  In a few moments I returned, and looked out again.  Both the fallen ones had regained their feet, and passed out of sight, and Biddy, who had witnessed the last scene in this half comic, half tragic performance, was giving the pavement a plentiful coating of ashes and cinders.