"Not that the poor little thing is at all particular, I suppose, about
her clothes," Bess remarked. "I don't imagine she ever wore a garment
that really fitted her, or was made for her. Her shoes weren't mates--I
saw that the other day, didn't you, Nan?"
"I saw that they were broken," Nan agreed, with a sigh. "Poor
little thing!"
"And although fashion allows all kinds of hats this season, I am very
sure that straw of hers had seen hard service for twelve months or more,"
Bess added.
Walter, hearing the number and street of Inez's lodging, insisted upon
accompanying the chums on their errand. Grace did not go. She frankly
admitted that such squalid places as Mother Beasley's were insufferable;
and where Inez lived might be worse.
"I'm just as sorry for such people as I can be and I'd like to help them
all," Grace said. "But it makes me actually ill to go near them. How
mother can delve as she does in the very slums--well, I can't do it!
Walter is like mother; he doesn't mind."
"I guess you're like your father," said Bess. "He believes in putting
poor people into jails, otherwise institutions, instead of giving them a
chance to make good where they are. And there aren't enough institutions
for them all. I never supposed there were so many poor people in this
whole world as we have seen in Chicago.
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