three years; the musty smells were associated with ever so many
bygone thoughts and states of feeling; the stains on the wall (had
it been daylight), the irregularities of the bare wooden steps, were
remembrancers of projects and hopes and disappointments. For many
months now every visit had been with heavier heart; his tap at the
Hewetts' door had a melancholy sound to him.

A woman's voice bade him enter. He stepped into a room which was not
disorderly or unclean, but presented the chill discomfort of
poverty. The principal, almost the only, articles of furniture were
a large bed, a washhand stand; a kitchen table, and two or three
chairs, of which the cane seats were bulged and torn. A few
meaningless pictures hung here and there, and on the mantel-piece,
which sloped forward somewhat, stood some paltry ornaments, secured
m their places by a piece of string stretched in front of them. The
living occupants were four children and their mother. Two little
girls, six and seven years old respectively, were on the floor near
the fire; a boy of four was playing with pieces of fire-wood at the
table. The remaining child was an infant, born but a fortnight ago,
lying at its mother's breast. Mrs. Hewett sat on the bed, and bent
forward in an attitude of physical weakness. Her age was
twenty-seven, but she looked several years older. At nineteen she
had married; her husband, John Hewett, having two children by a
previous union. Her face could never have been very attractive, but
it was good-natured, and wore its pleasantest aspect as she smiled
on Sidney's entrance. You would have classed her at once with those
feeble-willed, weak-minded, yet kindly-disposed women, who are only
too ready to meet affliction half-way, and who, if circumstances be
calamitous, are more harmful than an enemy to those they hold dear.
She was rather wrapped up than dressed, and her hair, thin and