house, was not--if I may be allowed--quite so well bred.

This came partly from the outdoor life it had always led and from its
close association with other yards that had lost all semblance of
respectability, and partly from the fact that it had never felt the
refining influences of the friends of the house; for nobody ever
lingered in the front yard who by any possibility could get into the
front door--nobody, except perhaps now and then a stray tramp, who
felt at home at once and went to sleep on the steps.

That all this told upon its character and appearance was shown in the
remnants of whitewash on the high wall, scaling off in discolored
patches; in the stagger of the tall fence opposite, drooping like a
drunkard between two policemen of posts; and in the unkempt, bulging
rear of the third wall,--the front house,--stuffed with rags and tied
up with clothes-lines.

If in the purity of its youth it had ever seen better days as a
garden--but then no possible stretch of imagination, however brilliant,
could ever convert this miserable quadrangle into a garden.

It contained, of course, as all such yards do, one lone plant,--this
time a honeysuckle,--which had clambered over the front door and there
rested as if content to stay; but which later on, frightened at the
surroundings, had with one great spring cleared the slippery wall
between, reached the rain-spout above, and by its helping arm had thus
escaped to the roof and the sunlight.

It is also true that high up on this same wall there still clung the
remains of a criss-cross wooden trellis supporting the shivering