s
were patched with paper, and stuffed with the foulest rags; the doors
were falling from their hinges; poles with lines on which to dry clothes,
projected from every casement, and sounds of quarrelling or drunkenness
issued from every room.

The solitary oil lamp in the centre of the court had been blown out,
either by the violence of the wind or the act of some inhabitant who had
excellent reasons for objecting to his residence being rendered too
conspicuous; and the only light which fell upon the broken and uneven
pavement, was derived from the miserable candles that here and there
twinkled in the rooms of such of the more fortunate residents as could
afford to indulge in so expensive a luxury. A gutter ran down the centre
of the alley--all the sluggish odours of which had been called forth by
the rain; and as the wind whistled through the old houses, the doors and
shutters creaked upon their hinges, and the windows shook in their
frames, with a violence which every moment seemed to threaten the
destruction of the whole place.

The man whom we have followed into this den, walked on in the darkness,
sometimes stumbling into the main gutter, and at others into some branch
repositories of garbage which had been formed by the rain, until he
reached the last house in the court. The door, or rather what was left
of it, stood ajar, for the convenience of the numerous lodgers; and he
proceeded to grope his way up the old and broken stair, to the attic
story.

He was within a step or two of his room door, when it opened, and a girl,
whose miserable and emaciated appearance was only to be equalled by that
of the candle which she shaded with her hand, peeped anxiously out.

'Is that you, father?' said the girl.

'Who else should it be?' replied the man gruffly. 'What are you
trembling at? It's little enough that I've had to drink to-day, for
there's no drink without money, and no money without work. What the
devil's the matter with the girl?'

'I am not well, father--not at all well,' said the girl, bursting into
tears.

'Ah!' replied the man, in the tone of a person who is compelled to admit
a very unpleasant fact, to which he would rather remain blind, if he
could. 'You must get better somehow, for we must have money. You must
go to the parish doctor, and make him give you some medicine. They're
paid for it, damn 'em. What are you standing before the door for? Let
me come in, can't you?'

'Father,' whispe