t Sunday."

He did not however this time insist on going with her. He went by
himself. It is certain that the misery of London disclosed to him by
this drive to Field-Lane, the course of which gave him a good sample of
it, did almost shake him in his opinion that Eleanor ought to be let
alone. Mr. Carlisle had not seen such a view of London in his life
before; he had not been in such a district of crime and wretchedness;
or if by chance he had touched upon it, he had made a principle of not
seeing what was before him. Now he looked; for he was going where
Eleanor was accustomed to go, and what he saw she was obliged to meet
also. He reached the building where the Field-Lane school was held, in
a somewhat excited state of mind.

He found at the door several policemen, who warned him to guard well
and in a safe place anything of value he might have about his person.
Then he was ushered up stairs to the place where the school was held.
He entered a very large room, looking like a factory room, with bare
beams and rough sides, but spacious and convenient for the purpose it
was used for. Down the length of this room ran rows of square forms,
with alleys left between the rows; and the forms were in good measure
filled with the rough scholars. There must have been hundreds collected
there; three-fourths of them perhaps were girls, the rest boys and
young men, from seven years old and upwards. But the roughness of the
scholars bore no proportion to the roughness of the room. _That_ had
order, shape, and some decency of preparation. The poor young human
creatures that clustered within it were in every stage of squalor,
rags, and mental distortion. With a kind of wonder Mr. Carlisle's eye
went from one to another to note the individual varieties of the
general character; and as it took in the details, wandered
horror-stricken, from the nameless dirt and shapeless rags which
covered the person, to the wild or stupid or cunning or devilish
expression of vice in the face. Beyond description, both. There were
many there who had never slept in a bed in their lives; many who never
had their clothes off from one month's end to another; the very large
proportion lived day and night by a course of wickedness. There they
were gathered now, these wretches, eight or ten in a form, listening
with more or less of interest to the instructions of their teachers who
sat before them; and many, Mr. Carlisle saw, were shewing deep interest
in face