The doctor shook his head, but answered:--

"There is the most pitiful apology for a father that I ever saw,--a mere
wreck of a man! Spends his time in a sort of weak drinking, if I may
coin a phrase to describe him; he actually uses no energy even in that
business. Just staggers around and bemoans his lot; a most unfortunate
man, in his own estimation, with whom the world, through no fault of
his, has gone wrong. He is never downright intoxicated, and never free
from the effects of liquor. He is much like a wilted leaf in the hands
of this boy and girl. They could pitch him out of the window without
much difficulty, and if the fall did not kill him he would shed tears
and say it was a hard world. But now, what do we see, when the name of
father is so dishonored,--made a wreck, as it were? Why, the order of
nature is reversed, and these children take on the protective. They are
father and mother, and he is the weak, sinning child. The way that that
boy and girl have worked to keep their miserable father from starving or
freezing is something to astonish the very angels. They shield him, too;
nobody who wants to reach their hearts must blame him. They are a
study!--as different from the other inhabitants of the alley as the sky
is different from that mud-hole down there. It isn't a good simile,
either. There is no religion in their efforts. They are the veriest
heathen."

"How do you account for the development?"

The doctor shook his head:--

"I don't account for it; it is abnormal. There must have been a mother
who left her impress. I can't learn anything about the mother--she died
when the girl was an infant; but I would like to know her history. I