. In the beginning there was merely a general wildness and disorder
in his appearance,--first one button, then two, then three dropped from
his coat. After that his linen was changed less often, his hair allowed
to spread more stiffly above his forehead, and the old ashes from his
pipe dislodged less frequently from the creases in his striped shirt. At
the end of three months I noticed a new fact about him--a penetrating
odour of alcohol which belonged to the very air he breathed. His mind
grew slower and seemed at last almost to stop; his blue eyes became
heavier and glazed at times; and presently he fell into the habit of
going out in the evenings, and not returning until I had cried myself to
sleep, under my tattered quilt, with Samuel hugged close in my arms.
Sometimes the red-haired girl would stop after her work for a few
friendly words, proving that a slovenly exterior is by no means
incompatible with a kindly heart; but as a usual thing I was left alone,
after the boys had gone home from their play in the street, to amuse
myself and Samuel as I could through the long evening hours. Sometimes I
brought in an apple or a handful of chestnuts given me by one of the
neighbours and roasted them before the remnants of fire in the stove.
Once or twice I opened my mother's closet and took down her clothes--her
best bombazine dress, her black cashmere mantle trimmed with bugles, her
long rustling crape veil, folded neatly beneath her bonnet in the tall
bandbox--and half in grief, half in curiosity, I invaded those sacred
precincts where my hands had never dared penetrate while she was alive.
My great loss, from which probably in more cheerful surroundings I
should have recovered in a few weeks, was renewed in me every evening by
my loneliness and by the dumb sympathy of Samuel, who would stand
wagging his tail for an hour at the sight of the cloak or the bonnet
that she had worn. Like my father I grew more unkempt and ragged every
day I lived. I ceased to wash myself, because there was nobody to make
me. My buttons dropped off one by one and nobody scolded. I dared no
longer go near the gate of the enchanted garden, fearing that if the
little girl were to catch sight of me, she would call me "dirty," and
run away in disgust. Occasionally my father would clap me upon the
shoulder at breakfast, enquire how I was getting along, and give me a
rusty copper to spend. But for the greater part of the time, I believe,
he was hardly