r, enable one to understand more clearly the circumstances
which contributed to the formation of character. The daily life
into which people are born, and into which they are absorbed before
they are well aware, forms chains which only one in a hundred has
moral strength enough to despise, and to break when the right time
comes--when an inward necessity for independent individual action
arises, which is superior to all outward conventionalities. Therefore
it is well to know what were the chains of daily domestic habit which
were the natural leading-strings of our forefathers before they
learnt to go alone.

The picturesqueness of those ancient streets has departed now.
The Astleys, the Dunstans, the Waverhams--names of power in that
district--go up duly to London in the season, and have sold their
residences in the county-town fifty years ago, or more. And when the
county-town lost its attraction for the Astleys, the Dunstans, the
Waverhams, how could it be supposed that the Domvilles, the Bextons,
and the Wildes would continue to go and winter there in their
second-rate houses, and with their increased expenditure? So the
grand old houses stood empty awhile; and then speculators ventured
to purchase, and to turn the deserted mansions into many smaller
dwellings, fitted for professional men, or even (bend your ear lower,
lest the shade of Marmaduke, first Baron Waverham, hear) into shops!

Even that was not so very bad, compared with the next innovation on
the old glories. The shopkeepers found out that the once fashionable
street was dark, and that the dingy light did not show off their
goods to advantage; the surgeon could not see to draw his patient's
teeth; the lawyer had to ring for candles an hour earlier than he was
accustomed to do when living in a more plebeian street. In short, by
mutual consent, the whole front of one side of the street was pulled
down, and rebuilt in the flat, mean, unrelieved style of George the
Third. The body of the houses was too solidly grand to submit to
alteration; so people were occasionally surprised, after passing
through a commonplace-looking shop, to find themselves at the foot of
a grand carved oaken staircase, lighted by a window of stained glass,
storied all over with armorial bearings.

Up such a stair--past such a window (through which the moonlight fell
on her with a glory of many colours)--Ruth Hilton passed wearily one
January night, now many years ago. I call it night