“You are home early, Paul,” said a woman of middle age, looking up at his entrance.

“Yes, mother; I've sold out.”

“You've not sold out the whole fifty packages?” she asked, in surprise.

“Yes, I have. I had capital luck.”

“Why, you must have made as much as a dollar, and it's not twelve yet.”

“I've made more than that, mother. Just wait a minute, till I've reckoned up a little. Where's Jimmy?”

“Miss Beckwith offered to take him out to walk with her, so I let him go. He'll be back at twelve.”

While Paul is making a calculation, a few words of explanation and description may be given, so that the reader may understand better how he is situated¹.

The rooms occupied by Paul and his mother were three in number. The largest one was about fourteen feet square, and was lighted by two windows. It was covered with a neat, though well-worn, carpet; a few cane-bottomed chairs were ranged at the windows, and on each side of the table. There was a French clock on the mantel, a rocking chair for his mother, and a few inexpensive engravings hung upon the walls. There was a hanging bookcase containing two shelves, filled with books, partly school books, supplemented by a few miscellaneous books, such as “Robinson Crusoe,” “Pilgrim's Progress,” a volume of “Poetical Selections,” an odd volume of Scott, and several others. Out of the main room opened two narrow chambers², both together of about the same area as the main room. One of these was occupied by Paul and Jimmy, the other by his mother.

Those who are familiar with the construction of a New York tenement-house will readily understand the appearance of the rooms into which we have introduced them. It must, however, be explained that few similar apartments are found so well furnished. Carpets are not very common in tenement-houses, and if there are any pictures, they are usually the cheapest prints. Wooden chairs, and generally every object of the cheapest, are to be met with in the dwellings³ of the New York poor. If we find something better in the present instance, it is not because Paul and his mother are any better off than their neighbors. On the contrary, there are few whose income is so small. But they have seen better days, and the furniture we see has been saved from the time of their comparative prosperity.

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