this present time a pound weekly; his sister, an average of thirteen
shillings. Mrs. Hewett's constant ill-health (the result, doubtless,
of semi-starvation through the years of her girlhood), would have
excused defects of housekeeping; but indeed the poor woman was under
any circumstances incapable of domestic management, and therein
represented her class. The money she received was wasted in
comparison with what might have been done with it. I suppose she
must not be blamed for bringing children into the world when those
already born to her were but half-clothed, half-fed; she increased
the sum total of the world's misery in obedience to the laws of the
Book of Genesis. And one virtue she had which compensated for all
that was lacking--a virtue merely negative among the refined, but
in that other world the rarest and most precious of moral
distinctions--she resisted the temptations of the public-house.

This was the story present in Sidney Kirkwood's mind as often as he
climbed the staircase in Clerkenwell Close. By contrast, his own
life seemed one of unbroken ease. Outwardly it was smooth enough. He
had no liking for his craft, and being always employed upon the
meaningless work which is demanded by the rich vulgar, he felt such
work to be paltry and ignoble; but there seemed no hope of obtaining
better. and he made no audible complaint. His wages were consider
ably more than he needed, and systematically he put money aside each
week.

But this orderly existence concealed conflicts of heart and mind
which Sidney himself could not have explained, could not lucidly
have described. The moral shock which he experienced at his father's
death put an end to the wanton play of his energies, but it could
not ripen him before due time; his nature was not of the sterile