hment upon the old estate, now held by a
speculative builder; of many streets to be constructed, three or four
had already come into being, and others were mapped out, in mud and
inchoate masonry, athwart the ravaged field. Great elms, the pride of
generations passed away, fell before the speculative axe, or were left
standing in mournful isolation to please a speculative architect;
bits of wayside hedge still shivered in fog and wind, amid hoardings
variegated with placards and scaffolding black against the sky. The
very earth had lost its wholesome odour; trampled into mire, fouled with
builders' refuse and the noisome drift from adjacent streets, it sent
forth, under the sooty rain, a smell of corruption, of all the town's
uncleanliness. On this rising locality had been bestowed the title of
'Park.' Mrs. Morgan was decided in her choice of a dwelling here by the
euphonious address, Merton Avenue, Something-or-other Park.

The old mansion--not very old, and far from beautiful, but stoutly
built--stood grim and desolate, long dismantled, and waiting only to be
torn down for the behoof of speculative dealers in old material. What
aforetime was a tree-bordered drive, now curved between dead stumps, a
mere slushy cartway; the stone pillars, which had marked the entrance,
damaged in the rending away of metal with a market value, drooped
sideways, ready at a touch to bury themselves in slime.

Through summer months the Morgans had suffered sufficiently from
the defects of their house; with the coming on of winter, they found
themselves exposed to miseries barely endurable. At the first slight
frost, cistern and water-pipes went to ruin; already so damp that
unlovely vegetation had cropped up on cellar walls, the edifice was now
drenched with torrents of water. Plaster fell from the ceilings; paper
peeled away down the staircase; stuccoed portions of the front began to
crack and moulder. Not a door that would close as a door should; not a
window that would open in the way expected of it; not a fireplace but
discharged its smoke into the room, rather than by the approved
channel. Everywhere piercing draughts, which often entered by orifices
unexplained and unexplainable. From cellar floor to chimney-pot, no
square inch of honest or trustworthy workmanship. So thin were the
parti-walls that conversation not only might, but must, be distinctly
heard from room to room, and from house to house; the Morgans learnt to
subdue their