Under ordinary conditions the roadway of the Bend is cluttered with pushcarts, but to-day the curbstones on both sides were closely lined, from Bayard to Park Streets, with snugly nested carts of the idle pedlers, making a shambling fence, over and under and through which a swarm of children played. The sidewalks were made impassable, except for a leisurely lounger, by the stalls and stands of the market - women, whose calm appropriation of more than half the sidewalk space is the despair of the Municipal Bureau of Encumbrances.

There are no modern tenements in the block which forms the southwest side of the Bend; and as the project for condemning the block for a park has been talked about for years, even the repair of the ordinary or, rather, the extraordinary wear and tear has been neglected, until now the old buildings seem to be holding themselves together by one last effort until the Park Commissioners shall remove one prop from one building, when surely they will all fall in a heap of worn-out material. In one of the tenements in that block a peculiarly atrocious murder had been committed that morning, and the police officer on post had agreed to further my quest for local color" by piloting me to the scene of the crime. It was not until we had reached the mouth of the dark tunnel we entered-a tunnel which, as it penetrated the building from street to court flatly on the sidewalk level, served the purposes of surface drainage as well as an entrance to the stairs and court that I discovered the fact that there existed any means of entering the tenement. I had, in fact, passed it unnoticed three or four times in my unaided search. This was because two sidewalk stalls had almost closed up the entrance, and we had to edge our way in between them. One stall was for the sale of bread only, but the second was as diversified in its offerings as the first was limited. The first was piled high with beautifully baked loaves of varying sizes and shapes, which are sold by weight, every purchaser sharply watching the scales on which the loaf is weighed before a sale is made. On the stall opposite were a tub of little olives, which are dipped out of their brine with

a wire scoop; a barrel of dried fish, each layer forming a many-pointed star of geometrical exactness; baskets of big Italian chestnuts, some dried and freed from their shells; boxes of oranges by the side of a mound of vivid green bellpeppers; eight varieties of sausages-I remember going back to count those sausages-tobacco, pipes, matches, buttons, thread, and a full line of Italian comic papers. Peering between these two market stalls one could look through the tunnel, whose meagre dimensions were diminished by half where the stairway ascended, and see at the end a point of vague light admitted from the court beyond.

The crime, whose sensational features had given it a news importance the insignificance of the man and woman involved would have denied it, had been committed only a couple of hours before; but the people of the tenement seemed to be interested in it very little, or not at all. There were some children who retained enough curiosity about the affair to follow us to the door of the bare little box of a room I had to describe, but they obeyed with knowing docility the officer's command to "Get out of here." There were also two or three men, vastly unpleasant - looking fellows, who displayed an unfriendly interest in our visit, but they disappeared in dark doorways quietly enough when the officer, with gruff familiarity, asked them, "Have you lost anything you are looking for?" They may not have understood his idiom, but his tone was unmistakable.

The

My local color desire had been satisfied, and we were about to leave the room, when my attention was attracted by sounds of music and dancing. one window in the room looked out on the court whose stone pavement I could see four stories below, criss-crossed from my view point by a netting of bare clothes-lines. On a bench on one side of the court four negroes sat playing on banjos and guitars, and sometimes singing. Leaning against the walls were a score of men, and in the doorways of the rear tenement, facing the court, were groups of men and women, most of them Italians, a few negroes. These groups, spreading on the steps outside

the doors and compressed back into the darkening halls in compact masses, suggested champagne corks; as if those inside the doors had been forcibly driven into the hallways, and those outside could only be kept in place by being wired. At every window opening on the court were as many heads of men and women as the space would accommodate, except that only the officer's head and mine appeared at our window, the former occupants of the room then being in the Tombs and the morgue. On the stones of the court itself little children were dancing, and it was this and the music which had drawn so many spectators from the dark interiors of the tenements to the doors and windows. The musicians were itinerants who, like so many others there, had been kept from the streets by the rain. The reds and greens, conspicuous in the colors of the women's dress, brightened the dingy court, but what gave this picture its greatest life and animation were the dancing children. There seemed to be hundreds of them, and really there must have been scores. Their dancing was natural, light, and graceful. Their delight in the festival was exhilarating to watch. Of course those little arabs seldom have the treat of music to accompany their dancing; not even a handorgan, for the players of those inspiring instruments live there, and are under no illusions which would lead them to expect pennies for their services in that neighborhood. In what are often spoken of as "poor sections" of the city-Imean streets which a Broadway stroller may invade, if he cares to, by a very little digression from his accustomed walkhand-organs abound, and there earn their owners their greatest rewards. Those sections, however, would be considered dwelling-places of the worldly blessed by the inhabitants of Mulberry Bend, and the stoutly shod little girls who dance about the organs deemed daughters of the great in the land by the barefoot, barelegged, half-clad girls who danced in that court.

It is only on days of such forbidding weather as keeps the banjoists and guitarists at home-the hand-organists are abroad with the blizzard - that these children of the tenement courts hear

on.

That was a fact.

The little girl he pointed out had her hands on her hips, her body above her hips held rigidly erect, her head thrown back, and she never moved to the right or left from the centre of the flagstone she danced Her bare feet sharply slapped the wet stone in perfect time to the lively thrumming of the strings. A negro left a doorstep group and "patted" for the little jig-dancer. This move was approved by shouts and laughs from all the spectators, and a rattle of friendly chatter suddenly shot back and forth across the court from a dozen groups.

All the girls except the jig - dancer were performing ballet steps with a regard for toe-pointing, unbending knees, and body posturing, that suggested a strongly marked inherited aptitude for that character of dance. In doing this they moved all over the court; the best dancers being named for special praise and applause. When there was an intermission for the orchestra, one of the Italians moved about among the spectators, and soon afterward sent one of the children out of the court with a tin pail. The child returned with the pail filled with beer, which was given to the musicians. musicians. After they had drunk they passed the pail, first to the man who had made the collection for the treat, and next to the little jig dancer. She divided her portion with the negro who had patted for her.

66

There's few of the Irish left about here," said the police officer. "That girl's father is one who has not been driven over to the West Side by the Guinneys. (I understood (I understood "Guinney" to be his slang for an Italian-an abbreviation of Giovanni.) They mostly

can't get along together, but her father was born in this ward, would not be driven out, and the Guinneys have kind of adopted him in their gang. The little girl is useful to us, for she has picked up enough Italian to help us out when we strike a case where no one speaks English-like this one."

By "this one" I knew that the officer referred to the murder case we had both worked on that day; he for evidence, I for color.

T

HE little hunchback moved noiselessly about the room and placed all the chairs with their backs against the wall. The sunlight coming in through the closed shutters threw golden streaks across the floor. Presently another little woman, more crooked than the first, entered very quietly.

"Let us see how they look now," she said, addressing her sister; for they were sisters, and known as "The little hunchbacks" from one end of Carmine Street to the other. She glided to the window one row of golden streaks broadened and the chairs and a sofa were seen to be the only furniture. The air was heavy with the odor of flowers.

It had been very strange-what the young doctor who had attended her had said when they had shown him the photographs: the two photographs that the silent sweet-faced gentlewoman held in her hands when she died. One was faded and very old-fashioned-the picture of a little girl dressed in a stiff white frock, with a big plaid sash and new button-shoes.

The other photograph was very new and very fashionable, with a great dashing signature at the bottom. It was very shiny, like the ones you see in the shop-windows over on the avenue, and the sisters had wondered and had admired it greatly. "I believe that I can find her,' was what they both understood the young doctor to say. Then he had left with the photographs in his pocket-and soon had come the undertaker and the flowers.

وو

Suddenly the noise of the Carmine Street children, playing in the new building across the way, hushed and then broke out shriller than before. The sound of wheels stopping before the house made one of the little sisters start, and she said, nervously, "Here is one of them now -as if she were expecting some people who were late, but it was only an ordinary hearse with black horses that wore trailing fly-nets with huge tassels.

The undertaker's assistant jumped off

the box and entered the house without knocking. He was a young man with condescending manners, who bent down very low, and whispered, when he spoke to the two sisters, and touched each one of their humps with his hand as if by accident. Strange to say, he held a dollar bill between his fingers. Then he went outside, leaned against the rusty old newel-post and smoked a cigarette.

A loud-voiced clock hurriedly struck the hour in the kitchen, and the little sisters looked anxiously at one another, but before they had time to speak the sound of wheels again stopping made them turn to the window.

A neat coupé, with a big brown horse, stood close to the sidewalk next to the hearse. A tall young woman dressed in black stepped out and stood holding the door of the coupé open and looking up at the little red brick house; the children grouped about the hearse gazed at her in silence, and the undertaker's assistant stopped smoking instantly. When she saw the crape on the bell-handle the young woman gently closed the door of the coupé and ascended the steps. The sisters were too awe-struck to move at first, and the bell in the empty hallway was still jingling softly when the mysterious one entered the room. She said something in a low voice, and one of the blinds was opened. Then she glanced about her and walked quietly to the doorway and looked over the huge basket of flowers at the still, white face. She had pulled up the dark veil and it made a black band across her forehead. Then she stood up very straight, her shoulders shook slightly, and she twisted her handkerchief in and out through her fingers the way people do on the stage when they are crying to themselves.

The little hunchbacks, who were dressmakers, could not help admiring the closely fitting gown, and they thought they had never seen such light golden hair in all their lives. When she turned, however, they almost gasped in unison. It was the woman who wore the great plumed hat in the shiny photograph. She drew down her veil again to her chin and seated herself on an uncomfortable stiff-backed chair.

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The undertaker's assistant, who had come in, tiptoed across the room in his cheap, squeaking shoes. He had been almost as much overcome as the two little women; he had stood there pulling stupidly at his thick lower lip, dumfounded, and now it was his intention to go out and tell the driver what had happened.

The assistant was just in time to open the door for a large old man who carried a small satchel. He was hot and dusty, and explained in a deep, sonorous voice that the train had been late; otherwise he would have arrived an hour ago. When he had looked at the quiet face of the dead woman, he had breathed very long, made an odd dry sound in his throat, and had gone back into the little kitchen to put on his stole and surplice.

Somebody in the hall inquired for one of the sisters in a loud, puffing whisper, and a stout woman with a shawl pinned over her bosom entered; she lived in the near-by tenement - house and had brought a cheap bunch of flowers, tied with a white string, besides an evident willingness to weep loudly if it was necessary. But after she looked about her she sat down awkwardly on the edge of the nearest chair.

And now a strange thing happened. The young girl arose and took the little bunch of flowers from where the washerwoman had hid them beneath her shawl (when she had seen the basket of white roses), and she lifted the trailing smilax and placed it in the veinless waxen hands.

Then the service began. It was the usual service of the church except that there was no singing, and the old minister at last took off his spectacles, and the monotony of his reading ceased. He began to speak in a low voice, earnestly, as if he were addressing one person only.

The two little hunchbacks, who had known sorrow, sat side by side and wiped their eyes with stiffly folded handkerchiefs like blotting-pads. Two wet spots showed in the young woman's veil and a tear rolled down from beneath it and plashed on the tightly clasped hands in her lap-the slender hands on which the jewels showed so plainly be

neath her gloves. The washerwoman, who did not understand it, began to weep when she saw the tears of the others and had recourse to the corner of her dingy moth-eaten shawl.

The deep voice of the old man suddenly broke in a sob that he could control no longer, and the young girl slipped quietly to him and grasped his arm with both her hands; she could not speak, but simply bowed her head be

neath the wide white sleeve that he had thrown about her. Then the old man prayed and kissed her forehead, and his tears wet her light crisp hair.

When they had all left, the little sisters opened the shutters to the sunshine and placed a notice in one of the windows showing they had a furnished room to rent with board. Oh, yes-the young doctor. He attended the funeral and stood out in the hallway.

N

O. 4, rue de Chevreuse, stands right in the heart of the Old Latin Quarter of Paris. Here has been in flourishing existence, since September, 1893, the new American Girls' Art Club, a home of delightful and economic safety for the legion of young women who, in the pursuit of art, annually go unprotected abroad.

No spot more calculated to thrill the imagination of artistic American youth could well have been chosen than this quaint corner of Paris. Every stone has an historic art-association. Along those narrow streets artists have always swung away up in those lofty attics, student-philosophers have dreamed their dreams, and poets have sung their songs to the eternal hallowing of every brick and stone. Every reminiscence is inspiring, and the present actual surroundings are, in addition, brimful of interest and practical advantage.

The Club stands within three blocks of the Luxembourg Gardens, within easy walking distance of the École des Beaux-Arts, and in the midst of many of the principal studios, among them those of Bouguereau, Laurens, and Whistler, which are within a block. Above all things the famous schools of Colarossi, Delécluse and Montparnasse -always favorite head-quarters for the American student-are within a few minutes' reach, so that, taken all in all, the environment of the new Girls' Club

is a rarely good combination of ideal and practical benefit.

When the American girl first sets foot in the rue de Chevreuse-where the pavement is too narrow to admit her friend's walking beside her - she thinks, truly enough, that so narrow a passage with so lofty dwellings she has never before seen. Simultaneously, however, she begins for the first time to associate narrow streetways with beauty and picturesqueness, instead of, as heretofore, with neglect and decay. There is here no filth or squalor, but order, refinement, and, above all-she feels it, the atmosphere exhales it-an unspeakable romance.

The new Club, once a handsome château, is a rambling triangular building, framing a court-yard at the rear, and running, with its huge, old-fashioned gardens, on to the parallel street at the back. Painted cream yellow, with redtiled roof, and overrun with creepers, its gay exterior is a delight in color to the eye. Within it has all the beauty and medieval mystery of numberless stairways and puzzling passages, and contains, in addition to the spacious reading, writing, dining, and two reception rooms, with library, about fifty bedrooms. Those bedrooms on the first three stories have long French windows; those on the fourth have dormer windows, all with a view on the court-yard, and many with a window opening on street and court-yard both.