Chamberss Edinburgh Journal, No. 428 | Page 9

if he did something towards rendering his property more eligible and wholesome, he might let his rooms to a better class of tenants, and that greater certainty of payment, together with a little higher rent, would remunerate him for the expense of the cleaning and repairs. The idea being agreeable both to his love of gain and his benevolence, he summoned his builder, and proposed that he should accompany him over these tenements, in order that they might agree as to what should be done, and calculate the outlay; and the house inhabited by Glegg and his daughter happening to be one of them, the old gentleman, in the natural course of events, found himself paying an unexpected visit to the unconscious subject of his last experiment; for the last it was, and so it was likely to remain, though three months had elapsed since he made it; but its ill success had discouraged him. There was something about Mary that so evidently distinguished her from his usual customers; she looked so innocent, so modest, and withal so pretty, that he thought if he failed with her, he was not likely to succeed with anybody else.
'Who lives in the attics?' he inquired of Mr Harker, the builder, as they were ascending the stairs.
'There's a widow and her daughter and son-in-law, with three children, in the back-room,' answered Mr Harker. 'I believe the women go out charring, and the man's a bricklayer. In the front, there's a man called Glegg and his daughter. I fancy they're people that have been better off at some time of their lives. He has been a tradesman--a cooper, he tells me; but things went badly with him; and since he came here, his wife died of the fever, and he's been so weakly ever since he had it, that he can earn nothing. His daughter lives by her needle.'
Mary was out; she had gone to take home some work, in hopes of getting immediate payment for it. A couple of shillings would purchase them coal and food, and they were much in need of both. John was sitting by the scanty fire, with his daughter's shawl over his shoulders, looking wan, wasted, and desponding.
'Mr Benjamin, the landlord, Mr Glegg,' said Harker.
John knew they owed a little rent, and was afraid they had come to demand it. 'I'm sorry my daughter's out, gentlemen,' he said. 'Will you be pleased to take a chair.'
'Mr Benjamin is going round his property,' said Harker. 'He is proposing to make a few repairs, and do a little painting and whitewashing, to make the rooms more airy and comfortable.'
'That will be a good thing, sir,' answered Glegg--'a very good thing; for I believe it is the closeness of the place that makes us country folks ill when we come to London. I'm sure I've never had a day's health since I've lived here.'
'You've been very unlucky, indeed, Mr Glegg,' said Harker. 'But you know, if we lay out money, we shall look for a return. We must raise your rent.'
'Ah, sir, I suppose so,' answered John with a sigh; 'and how we're to pay it, I don't know. If I could only get well, I shouldn't mind; for I'd rather break stones on the road, or sweep a crossing, than see my poor girl slaving from morning to night for such a pittance.'
'If we were to throw down this partition, and open another window here,' said Harker to Mr Benjamin, 'it would make a comfortable apartment of it. There would be room, then, for a bed in the recess.'
Mr Benjamin, however, was at that moment engaged in the contemplation of an ill-painted portrait of a girl, that was attached by a pin over the chimney-piece. It was without a frame, for the respectable gilt one that had formerly encircled it, had been taken off, and sold to buy bread. Nothing could be coarser than the execution of the thing, but as is not unfrequently the case with such productions, the likeness was striking; and Mr Benjamin, being now in the habit of seeing Mary, who bought all the meal they used at his shop, recognised it at once.
'That's your daughter, is it?' he said.
'Yes, sir; she's often at your place for meal; and if it wasn't too great a liberty, I would ask you, sir, if you thought you could help her to some sort of employment that's better than sewing; for it's a hard life, sir, in this close place for a young creature that was brought up in the free country air: not that Mary minds work, but the worst is, there's so little to be got by the needle, and it's such close confinement.'
Mr Benjamin's mind, during this address of poor Glegg's, was running on his guinea. He