Wealth paid for its
cruelty to poverty in those days, by suffering epidemics of disease
with the poor."
"Goodness, Nan! I never thought of that," said Walter. "What a
girl you are."
"She reads everything," said Bess, proudly; "even statistics."
Nan laughed heartily. "I did not get _that_ out of a book of statistics,
Bess. But that is why we have so many hospitals and institutions for
housing poor and ill people. Society has had to make these provisions for
the poor, to protect itself."
"Now you sound like a regular socialist or anarchist or something," said
Bess, somewhat vaguely.
"You'd have heard it all before, if you'd listened to some of Dr.
Beulah's lectures in the classroom," Nan said. "But we're far off the
subject of Inez. I wish we could find her; but there seems no way."
"Oh, Nan! are you sure? Put on your thinking-cap," begged Bess.
"I have thought," her chum replied. "I thought of trying to trace her
through the people who sell flowers to her. I asked Mrs. Beasley, and she
told me that the flowers Inez sells come from the hotels and big
restaurants where they have been on the tables over night. They are
sorted and sold cheap to street pedlers like Inez. Hundreds of little
ragamuffins buy and hawk these bouquets about the streets.
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