I tell her she'll go
to ruin--and she will."
Susan thanked Miss Hinkle and departed. A few minutes' walk
brought her to the old, high-stooped, brown-stone where Mrs.
Tucker lived. The dents, scratches and old paint scales on the
door, the dust-streaked windows, the slovenly hang of the
imitation lace window curtains proclaimed the cheap
middle-class lodging or boarding house of the humblest grade.
Respectable undoubtedly; for the fitfully prosperous
offenders against laws and morals insist upon better
accommodations. Susan's heart sank. She saw that once more she
was clinging at the edge of the precipice. And what hope was
there that she would get back to firm ground? Certainly not by
"honest labor." Back to the tenement! "Yes, I'm on the way
back," she said to herself. However, she pulled the loose
bell-knob and was admitted to a dingy, dusty hallway by a maid
so redolent of stale perspiration that it was noticeable even
in the hall's strong saturation of smells of cheap cookery.
The parlor furniture was rapidly going to pieces; the chromos
and prints hung crazily awry; dust lay thick upon the center
table, upon the chimney-piece, upon the picture frames, upon
the carving in the rickety old chairs. Only by standing did
Susan avoid service as a dust rag. It was typical of the
profound discouragement that blights or blasts all but a small
area of our modern civilization--a discouragement due in part
to ignorance--but not at all to the cause usually assigned--to
"natural shiftlessness.
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