hope, yet with the hunger of an unshaped desire; of women in whom the
sweetness of their sex is perishing under labour and misery; the
laugh, the song of the girl who strives to enjoy her year or two of
youthful vigour, knowing the darkness of the years to come; the
careless defiance of the youth who feels his blood and revolts against
the lot which would tame it; all that is purely human in these
darkened multitudes speaks to you as you listen. It is the
half-conscious striving of a nature which knows not what it would
attain, which deforms a true thought by gross expression, which
clutches at the beautiful and soils it with foul hands.

The children were dirty and ragged, several of them barefooted, nearly
all bare-headed, but they danced with noisy merriment. One there was,
a little girl, on crutches; incapable of taking a partner, she stumped
round and round, circling upon the pavement, till giddiness came upon
her and she had to fall back and lean against the wall, laughing aloud
at her weakness. Gilbert stepped up to her, and put a penny into her
hand; then, before she had recovered from her surprise, passed
onwards.'--(p. 111.)

This superb piece of imaginative prose, of which Shorthouse himself might
have been proud,[9] is recalled by an answering note in _Ryecroft_, in
which he says, 'I owe many a page to the street-organs.'

And, where the pathos has to be distilled from dialogue, I doubt if the
author of _Jack_ himself could have written anything more restrainedly
touching or in a finer taste than this:--

[Footnote 9: I am thinking, in particular, of the old vielle-player's
conversation in chap. xxiii. of _John Inglesant_; of the exquisite passage
on old dance music--its inexpressible pathos--in chap. xxv.]

'Laughing with kindly mirth, the old man drew on his woollen gloves
and took up his hat and the violin-bag. Then he offered to say
good-bye.

"But you're forgetting your top-coat, grandad," said Lydia.

"I didn't come in it, my dear."

"What's that, then? I'm sure _we_ don't wear such things."

She pointed to a chair, on which Thyrza had just artfully spread the
gift. Mr. Boddy looked in a puzzled way; had he really come in his
coat and forgotten it? He drew nearer.

"That's no coat o' mine, Lyddy," he said.

Thyrza broke into a laugh.

"Why, whose is it, then?" she exclaimed