Now that Mildred no longer went out to her work, she taxed her ingenuity to the utmost to amuse Fred and Minnie, that she might keep them from the horrible associations beyond their door, but her father’s irritability often rendered it impossible for them to remain in the room, and, childlike, they would assimilate somewhat with the little heathen among whom their lot was now cast.

Poor Mrs. Jocelyn was sinking under her sorrows.  She did not complain:  she blamed herself with a growing morbidness for the ruin of her husband and the hard lot of her children, and hope deferred was making her heart sick indeed.  Her refined, gentle nature recoiled with an indescribable repugnance from her surroundings, and one day she received a shock from which she never fully recovered.

Her husband was out, and Mildred had gone to deliver some work.  The children, whom she tried to keep with her, broke away at last and left the door open.  Before she could close it a drunken woman stumbled in, and, sinking into a chair, she let a bundle slip from her hands.  It fell on the floor, unrolled, and a dead infant lay before Mrs. Jocelyn’s horrified gaze.  Her cries for help brought a stout, red-faced woman from across the hallway, and she seemed to understand what was such a fearful mystery to Mrs. Jocelyn, for she took the unwelcome intruder by the shoulder and tried to get her to go out hastily, but the inebriated wretch was beyond shame, fear, or prudence.  Pulling out of her pocket a roll of bills, she exclaimed, in hideous exultation: 

“Faix, I’oive had a big day’s work.  Trhree swell families on the Avenue guv me all this to burry the brat.  Burry it?  Divil a bit.  It’s makin’ me fortin’.  Cud we ony git dead babbies enough we’d all be rich, Bridget, but here’s enough to kape the pot bilin’ for wakes to come, and guv us a good sup o’ whiskey into the bargain.  Here, take a drap,” she said, pulling out a black bottle and holding it up to Mrs. Jocelyn.  “What yer glowrin’ so ghostlike for?  Ah, let me alone, ye ould hag,” she said angrily to the red-faced woman, who seemed in great trepidation, and tried to put her hand over the drunken creature’s mouth.  “Who’s afeard?  Money’ll buy judge and jury, an’ if this woman peaches on us I’ll bate her brains out wid the dead babby.”

Finding that words were of no avail, and that she could not move the great inert mass under which Mrs. Jocelyn’s chair was creaking, the neighbor from across the way snatched the money and retreated to her room.  This stratagem had the desired effect, for the woman was not so intoxicated as to lose her greed, and she followed as hastily as her unsteady steps permitted.  A moment later the red-faced woman dashed in, seized the dead child and its wrappings, and then shaking her huge fist in Mrs. Jocelyn’s face, said, “If yees ever spakes of what yer’ve sane, I’ll be the death of ye—­by the V’argin I will; so mum’s the word, or it’ll be worse for ye.”