of spirits, and, if the truth must be told, out of money as well.
During the past year I had not managed my professional resources
as carefully as usual; and my extravagance now limited me to the
prospect of spending the autumn economically between my mother's
cottage at Hampstead and my own chambers in town.

The evening, I remember, was still and cloudy; the London air was
at its heaviest; the distant hum of the street-traffic was at its
faintest; the small pulse of the life within me, and the great
heart of the city around me, seemed to be sinking in unison,
languidly and more languidly, with the sinking sun. I roused
myself from the book which I was dreaming over rather than
reading, and left my chambers to meet the cool night air in the
suburbs. It was one of the two evenings in every week which I was
accustomed to spend with my mother and my sister. So I turned my
steps northward in the direction of Hampstead.

Events which I have yet to relate make it necessary to mention in
this place that my father had been dead some years at the period
of which I am now writing; and that my sister Sarah and I were the
sole survivors of a family of five children. My father was a
drawing-master before me. His exertions had made him highly
successful in his profession; and his affectionate anxiety to
provide for the future of those who were dependent on his labours
had impelled him, from the time of his marriage, to devote to the
insuring of his life a much larger portion of his income than most
men consider it necessary to set aside for that purpose. Thanks
to his admirable prudence and self-denial my mother and sister
were left, after his death, as independent of the world as they
had been during his lifetime. I succeeded to his connection, and