clutches at the beautiful and soils it with foul hands.

The children were dirty and ragged, several of them barefooted, nearly
all bare-headed, but they danced with noisy merriment. One there was,
a little girl, on crutches; incapable of taking a partner, she stumped
round and round, circling upon the pavement, till giddiness came upon
her and she had to fall back and lean against the wall, laughing aloud
at her weakness. Gilbert stepped up to her, and put a penny into her
hand; then, before she had recovered from her surprise, passed
onwards.'--(p. 111.)

This superb piece of imaginative prose, of which Shorthouse himself might
have been proud,[9] is recalled by an answering note in _Ryecroft_, in
which he says, 'I owe many a page to the street-organs.'

And, where the pathos has to be distilled from dialogue, I doubt if the
author of _Jack_ himself could have written anything more restrainedly
touching or in a finer taste than this:--

[Footnote 9: I am thinking, in particular, of the old vielle-player's
conversation in chap. xxiii. of _John Inglesant_; of the exquisite passage
on old dance music--its inexpressible pathos--in chap. xxv.]

'Laughing with kindly mirth, the old man drew on his woollen gloves
and took up his hat and the violin-bag. Then he offered to say
good-bye.

"But you're forgetting your top-coat, grandad," said Lydia.

"I didn't come in it, my dear."