b stopped at Number Nineteen. It
was a railway cab, less worn and ghastly than those vehicles in
general, but not bringing much evidence of gaiety or wealth for all
that. Its inmates were a widow and a boy of about fifteen; and all the
possessions they had with them were contained in one trunk of very
moderate dimensions, a cage with a canary bird twittering inside, some
pots of flowers, and a little white rabbit, one of the comical
'lop-eared' kind. There was something very touching in these evidences
of the fresh country life which they had left for the dull atmosphere
and steaming fogs of the metropolis. They told a sad tale of old
associations broken, and old loves forsworn; of days of comfort and
prosperity exchanged for the dreariness of poverty; and freedom, love,
and happiness, all snapped asunder for the leaden chain of suffering
to be forged instead. One could not help thinking of all those two
hapless people must have gone through before they could have summoned
courage to leave their own dear village, where they had lived so many
years in that local honourableness of the clergyman's family; throwing
themselves out of the society which knew and loved them, that they
might enter a harsh world, where they must make their own position,
and earn their own living, unaided by sympathy, honour, or affection.
They looked as if they themselves thought something of this too, when
they took possession of the desolate second floor; and the widow sat
down near her son, and taking his hand in hers, gave vent to a flood
of tears, which ended by unmanning the boy as well. And then they shut
up the window carefully, and nothing more was seen of them that night.

Mrs Lawson, the widow, was a mild, lady-like person, whose face bore
the marks of recent affliction, and whose whole appearance and manners
were those of a loving, gentle, unenergetic, and helpless woman, whom
sorrow could well crush beyond all power of resistance. The boy was a
tall, thin youth, with a hectic flush and a hollow cough, eyes bright
and restless, and as manifestly nervous as his mother was the reverse
in temperament--anxious and restless, and continually taxing his
strength beyond its power, making himself seriously ill in his
endeavours to save his beloved mother some small trouble. They seemed
to be very tenderly attached one to the other, and to supply to each
all that was wanting in each: the mother's gentleness soothing down
her boy's excitability,