Chapter I

The eye of the attentive observer who wanders through Fifth Avenue, and the streets which run into it from right and left, is especially attracted by the houses, built here in the Colonial, there in the Renaissance style. Some of these imposing edifices (often the only reminder of long-vanished fortunes), with their rich facades, afford a striking criterion of the tastes of their builders and of their former inhabitants.

In one of these houses, rearing their proud height to the sky, a small lap-dog, bedecked with silken ribbons, sat in a parlor window. He stretched his snowy paws with great satisfaction on the cushioned window-seat, warming himself in the April sun. The luxurious room behind him was quite empty, and the enforced solitude was not at all to the taste of the spoiled pet. It was probably for this reason that he did not find it worth his while to bark in a superior manner at the pedestrians who appeared on the street, but a look of silent contempt told very plainly that he had made up his mind to consider as extremely unpleasing the movements of a limping street-cleaner who was at the moment just in front of the house.

In fact, the lame man did not look as if he could pretend being favored with a condescending glance by a lap-dog living amidst such sumptuous surroundings.

He looked, too, as if he had had no great practice at his wretched calling--as if he were a novice at it. Although his sickly, sunken features were surrounded by an unkempt grey beard, and his clothing hung loosely about his wasted form, he somehow gave the impression of being an intelligent man of some education, upon whom undeserved misfortune pressed heavily.

The well-fed pet in the parlor window, however, had no conception of undeserved misery, and was about casting to the winds the carefully drilled manners of an educated dog when, fortunately, a well-appointed carriage drew up just as the lame man was preparing to go on his way.

A delicate-looking lady with a kindly face alighted from the carriage, and nodded smilingly to the little dog. The lame street-cleaner had no sooner glanced at the benevolent face of the richly-dressed woman than his emaciated form began to tremble. His face, so pale before, became red, as with humiliation, and in a state of marked agitation he was on the point of dropping his broom and stealing quietly away.

The lady, Mrs. Denison, who had just come from a charitable gathering, and was still under the influence of her charitable mood, felt hurriedly in her purse for a silver-piece, which she instructed her servant to give the lame man as she ascended the broad steps and disappeared into the house.

"I am no beggar!" stammered the street-cleaner in broken English, waving off the proffered alms with a trembling hand.

Within the mansion Mr. Denison, in a faultless evening costume, turned the diamond sleeve-links in the cuffs he was adjusting as he awaited his wife.

Mrs. Denison laid aside her hat and cloak and hastened upstairs to greet him, beginning at once to give him a rather feverish account of the doings of the association of which she was president.

Presently another turn was given to the conversation by the entrance of a tall young man with light blue eyes and a rather inexpressive face.

"I am done with racing for the present!" he cried eagerly, holding out his hand.

"Thank heaven!" answered Mrs. Denison, fervently.

"Eh, for once, George," said Mr. Denison thoughtfully.

"And do you know why? My favorite won first place--only think how lucky!" The young man's excitement was perceptible in his panting breath.

"And how delighted Lucy will be! Here she comes now," said Mrs. Denison, turning to kiss the white forehead of her daughter as she entered the room.

Lucy, a pale, thoughtful girl, with large, meditative eyes shaded by gold-rimmed glasses, held out her finely-shaped hand to George Elmore with a forced smile. There was, indeed, very little of the delight of which her mother had spoken to be seen in her face, although the young man scarcely seemed to notice its absence. Various sports occupied him to such an extent that he never had time to make a study of the girl to whom he was engaged. In addition to his penchant for amusements of the most superficial kind, the gift of observation was entirely lacking in his inflated brain. It was generally supposed that he was very much in love with her, but it was a question whether his affection for his riding-horse was not of a similar nature.

Any one who did observe the pale face of the young girl more closely, however, could not have failed to notice the light quivering of her finely-chiselled nostrils, the nervous motion of her red lips.

In spite of the assumed appearance of calm, which proved the power of her will, it was possible to perceive the existence within her of some deep emotion.

She was standing by the window, the involuntary witness of the alms giving when it had occurred. The lame man in the street was no stranger to her; she knew his domestic circumstances only too well, and during his stay in the hospital had helped to support his family without confiding the circumstance to her parents. Whether she had omitted to mention it for fear of making herself ridiculous, or from some deeper motive, perhaps she, herself, could not at the present moment have determined.

Lucy breathed a sigh of relief when the dinner was announced, and her _fiance_ went away to carry his pleasant news to other friends and acquaintances.

Meanwhile the poor cripple hobbled off to his miserable dwelling. With failing breath he dragged himself over the great distance which lay between him and the lower part of the city, without once raising his eyes from the pavement, suffering and devastating mental torture showing in the feverish glow of his sunken eyes.