FOOTNOTES:

[B] _Ampelopsis_, mock-grape. I have here literally translated the
botanical name of the Virginia creeper,--an appellation too cumbrous for
verse.

FIVE-SISTERS COURT AT CHRISTMAS-TIDE.

For a business street Every Lane certainly is very lazy. It sets out
just to make a short passage between two thoroughfares, but, though
forced first to walk straight by the warehouses that wall in its
entrance, it soon begins to loiter, staring down back alleys, yawning
into courts, plunging into stable-yards, and at length standing
irresolute at three ways of getting to the end of its journey. It passes
by artisans' shops, and keeps two or three masons' cellars and
carpenters' lofts, as if its slovenly buildings needed perpetual
repairs. It has not at all the air of once knowing better days. It began
life hopelessly; and though the mayor and common council and board of
aldermen, with ten righteous men, should daily march through it, the
broom of official and private virtue could not sweep it clean of its
slovenliness. But one of its idle turnings does suddenly end in a
virtuous court: here Every Lane may come, when it indulges in vain
aspirations for a more respectable character, and take refuge in the
quiet demeanor of Every Court. The court is shaped like the letter T
with an L to it. The upright beam connects it with Every Lane, and
maintains a non-committal character, since its sides are blank walls;
upon one side of the cross-beam are four houses, while a fifth occupies
the diminutive L of the court, esconcing itself in a snug corner, as if
ready to rush out at the cry of "All in! all in!" Gardens fill the
unoccupied sides, toy-gardens, but large enough to raise all the flowers
needed for this toy-court. The five houses, built exactly alike, are two
and a half stories high, and have each a dormer-window, curtained with
white dimity, so that they look like five elderly dames in caps; and the
court has gotten the name of Five-Sisters Court, to the despair of Every
Lane, which felt its sole chance for respectability slip away when the
court came to disown its patronymic.

It was at dusk, the afternoon before Christmas, that a young man,
Nicholas Judge by name, walking inquiringly down Every Lane, turned into
Five-Sisters Court, and stood facing the five old ladies, apparently in
some doubt as to which he should accost. There was a number on each
door, but no name; and it was impossible to tell from the out