he passed from under the influence of the fatal drug.  He was living over an abyss, and that which kept him from its depths was deepening and widening it daily.  He still had the vague hope that at some time and in some way he could escape; but days and weeks were passing, bringing no change for the better, no honest, patient effort to regain the solid ground of safety.  He was drifting down, and when at times he became conscious of the truth, a larger dose of morphia was his one method of benumbing the terror that seemed groping for his heart with a death-cold hand.

Mildred soon began to make rapid progress in her studies, and grew hopeful over the fact.  If her father would give her the chance she could make a place for herself among skilled workers within a year, and be able, if there were need, to provide for the entire family.  Great and prolonged destitution rarely occurs, even in a crowded city, unless there is much sickness or some destructive vice.  Wise economy, patient and well-directed effort, as a rule, secure comfort and independence, if not affluence; but continued illness, disaster, and especially sin, often bring with them a train of evils difficult to describe.

Mildred found time between her lessons to aid her mother and also to do a little fancy work, for which, through the aid of Miss Wetheridge, she found private customers who were willing to pay its worth.

Thus the month of October was passing rapidly and rather hopefully away.  They received letters from Clara Bute occasionally, wherein she expressed herself well content with the country and the situation Mrs. Atwood had obtained for her.  “I’m getting as plump and rosy as Susan,” she wrote, “and I’m not coming back to town.  Going up and down those tenement stairs tired me more than all the work I do here.  Still, I work hard, I can tell you; but it’s all sorts of work, with plenty of good air and good food to do it on.  I’m treated better than I ever was before—­just like one of the family, and there’s a young farmer who takes me out to ride sometimes, and he acts and talks like a man.”

Whether this attentive friend were Roger or a new acquaintance she did not say.  For some reason a reticence in regard to the former characterized her letters.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE OLD ASTRONOMER

One Saturday night Mildred was awakened from time to time by the wailing of a child.  The sounds came from the rooms of the Ulphs, which were directly overhead, and by morning she was convinced that there was a case of serious illness in the German family.  Led by her sympathies, and also by the hope of thawing the reserve of the eccentric old astronomer, she resolved to go and ask if she could be of any help.

In response to her light knock a shock-headed, unkempt boy opened the door and revealed a state of chaos that might well have driven mad any student of the heavenly bodies with their orderly ways.  There seemed to be one place for everything—­the middle of the floor—­and about everything was in this one place.  In the midst of a desolation anything but picturesque, Mrs. Ulph sat before the fire with a little moaning baby upon her lap.