Aunt
Euphronasia, or the fretful cries of little Benjamin, swathed in a blue
veil, in the old negress's lap. I had meant to make good that morning,
when I had knelt there sorting the yellow apples. I had made good for a
time, and yet to-day I was back in the place from which I had started.
Well, not in the same place, perhaps, but my foot had slipped on the
ladder, and I must begin again, if not from the very bottom, at least
from the middle rung. The market wagons, covered with canvas, were still
standing with empty shafts in the littered street, as if they had waited
there, a shelter for prowling dogs, until my return. Mrs. Chitling's
slovenly doorstep I could not see, but as we ascended the long hill on
the other side, I recognised the musty "old clothes" shop, in which I
had stumbled on "Sir Charles Grandison" and Johnson's Dictionary. That
minute, I understood now, had been in reality the turning-point in my
career. In that close-smelling room I had come to the cross-roads of
success or failure, and swerving aside from the dull level of ignorance,
I had rushed, almost by accident, into the better way. The very odour of
the place was still in my nostrils--a mixture of old clothes, of stale
cheese, of overripe melons. A sudden dizziness seized me, and a wave of
physical nausea passed over me, as if the intense heat of that past
summer afternoon had gone to my head.

The car stopped at the corner of old Saint John's; we got out, assisting
Aunt Euphronasia, and then turned down a side street in the direction of
our new home. As we mounted the curving steps, Sally passed a little
ahead of me, and looked back with her hand on the door.

"I am happy, Ben," she said with a smile; and with the words on her
lips, she crossed the threshold and entered the wide hall, where the
moth-eaten stags' heads, worn bare of fur, still hung on the faded
plaster.

My first impression upon entering the room was that the strange
surroundings struck with a homelike and familiar aspect upon my
consciousness. Then, as bewilderment gave place before a closer
scrutiny, I saw that this aspect was due to the presence of the objects
by which I had been so long accustomed to see Sally surrounded. Her
amber satin curtains hung at the windows; the deep couch, with the amber
lining, upon which she rested before dressing for dinner, stood near the
hearth; and even the two crystal vases, which I had always seen holding
fresh flowers upon her small, i