own, two half-crowns, now and then, at
long intervals, even half a sovereign, for the Father of the Marshalsea,
"With the compliments of a collegian taking leave." He received the
gifts as tributes to a public character.

Later he established the custom of attending collegians of a certain
standing to the gate, and taking leave of them there. The collegian
under treatment would often wrap up something in a paper and give it to
him, "For the Father of the Marshalsea."

_II.--The Child of the Marshalsea_

The youngest child of the Father of the Marshalsea, born within the
jail, was a very, very little creature indeed when she gained the
knowledge that while her own light steps were free to pass beyond the
prison gate, her father's feet must never cross that line.

At thirteen she could read and keep accounts--that is, could put down in
words and figures how much the bare necessaries they needed would cost,
and how much less they had to buy them with. From the first she was
inspired to be something which was not what the rest were, and to be
that something for the sake of the rest. Recognised as useful, even
indispensable, she took the place of eldest of the three in all but
precedence; was the head of the fallen family, and bore, in her own
heart, its anxieties and shames. She had been, by snatches of a few
weeks at a time, to an evening school outside, and got her sister and
brother sent to day schools by desultory starts, during three or four
years. There was no instruction for any of them at home; but she knew
well--no one better--that a man so broken as to be the Father of the
Marshalsea could be no father to his own children.

To these scanty means of improvement she added others. Her sister Fanny,
having a great desire to learn dancing, the Child of the Marshalsea
persuaded a dancing-master, detained for a short time, to teach her. And
Fanny became a dancer.

There was a ruined uncle in the family group, ruined by his brother, the
Father of the Marshalsea, and knowing no more how than his ruiner did,
on whom Fanny's protection devolved. Naturally a retired and simple man,
he had shown no particular sense of being ruined, further than that he
left off washing when the shock was announced, and never took to that
luxury any more. Having been a very indifferent musical amateur in his
better days, when he fell with his brother he resorted for support to
playing a clarionet in a small theatre orchestra. It was t