“Still, it was wrong of me,” said Esther, in a tone that brooked no protest.  “Suppose you had been in want and I could have helped you?”

“Oh, but you know I never take any help,” said Debby stiffly.

“I didn’t know that,” said Esther, touched.  “Have you never taken soup at the Kitchen?”

“I wouldn’t dream of such a thing.  Do you ever remember me going to the Board of Guardians?  I wouldn’t go there to be bullied, not if I was starving.  It’s only the cadgers who don’t want it who get relief.  But, thank God, in the worst seasons I have always been able to earn a crust and a cup of tea.  You see I am only a small family,” concluded Debby with a sad smile, “and the less one has to do with other people the better.”

Esther started slightly, feeling a strange new kinship with this lonely soul.

“But surely you would have taken help of me,” she said.  Debby shook her head obstinately.

“Well, I’m not so proud,” said Esther with a tremulous smile, “for see, I have come to take help of you.”

Then the tears welled forth and Debby with an impulsive movement pressed the little sobbing form against her faded bodice bristling with pin-heads.  Esther recovered herself in a moment and drank some more tea.

“Are the same people living here?” she said.

“Not altogether.  The Belcovitches have gone up in the world.  They live on the first floor now.”

“Not much of a rise that,” said Esther smiling, for the Belcovitches had always lived on the third floor.

“Oh, they could have gone to a better street altogether,” explained Debby, “only Mr. Belcovitch didn’t like the expense of a van.”

“Then, Sugarman the Shadchan must have moved, too,” said Esther.  “He used to have the first floor.”

“Yes, he’s got the third now.  You see, people get tired of living in the same place.  Then Ebenezer, who became very famous through writing a book (so he told me), went to live by himself, so they didn’t want to be so grand.  The back apartment at the top of the house you used once to inhabit,”—­Debby put it as delicately as she could—­“is vacant.  The last family had the brokers in.”

“Are the Belcovitches all well?  I remember Fanny married and went to Manchester before I left here.”

“Oh yes, they are all well.”

“What?  Even Mrs. Belcovitch?”

“She still takes medicine, but she seems just as strong as ever.”

“Becky married yet?”

“Oh no, but she has won two breach of promise cases.”

“She must be getting old.”

“She is a fine young woman, but the young men are afraid of her now.”

“Then they don’t sit on the stairs in the morning any more?”

“No, young men seem so much less romantic now-a-days,” said Debby, sighing.  “Besides there’s one flight less now and half the stairs face the street door.  The next flight was so private.”