out, and I was quite sure of one thing, namely, that I never should love
Sophie if she spent her life in inviting me to pay her visits. She told
me that tea would be ready in half an hour, and then left me. I sat down
on the bed when she was gone, and wished myself back in Varick-street;
and then cried, to think that I should be homesick for such a dreary
home. But the appetites and affections common to humanity had not been
left out of my heart, though I had been beggared all my life in regard
to most of them. I could have loved a mother so--a sister--I could have
had such happy feelings for a place that I could have felt was home.
What matter, if I could not even remember the smile on my mother's lips;
what matter, if no brother or sister had ever been born to me; if no
house had ever been my rightful home? I was hungry for them all the
same. And these first glimpses of the happy lives of others seemed to
disaffect me more than ever with my own.



CHAPTER IV.

MY COMPANIONS.

"Vous êtes belle: ainsi donc la moitié
Du genre humain sera votre ennemie."

_Voltaire_.

"Oh, I think the cause
Of much was, they forgot no crowd
Makes up for parents in their shroud."