aring scrub-oaks, but had
not seriously taken to bricks and mortar. In one direction the vista was
closed by the Home of the Inebriates, not in itself a cheerful-looking
building, and, as the apparent terminus of a ramble in a certain
direction, having all the effect of a moral lesson. To a certain extent,
however, this building was an imposition. The enthusiastic members of
my family, who confidently expected to see its inmates hilariously
disporting themselves at its windows in the different stages of
inebriation portrayed by the late W. E. Burton, were much disappointed.
The Home was reticent of its secrets. The County Hospital, also in range
of the bay-window, showed much more animation. At certain hours of the
day convalescents passed in review before the window on their way to
an airing. This spectacle was the still more depressing from a singular
lack of sociability that appeared to prevail among them. Each man
was encompassed by the impenetrable atmosphere of his own peculiar
suffering. They did not talk or walk together. From the window I have
seen half a dozen sunning themselves against a wall within a few feet
of each other, to all appearance utterly oblivious of the fact. Had they
but quarrelled or fought,--anything would have been better than this
horrible apathy.

The lower end of the street on which the bay-window was situate, opened
invitingly from a popular thoroughfare; and after beckoning the unwary
stranger into its recesses, ended unexpectedly at a frightful precipice.
On Sundays, when the travel North-Beachwards was considerable, the
bay-window delighted in the spectacle afforded by unhappy pedestrians
who were seduced into taking this street as a short-cut somewhere else.
It was amusing to notice how these people invariably, on coming to the
precipice, glanced upward to the bay-window and endeavored to assume a
careless air before they retraced their steps, whistling ostentatiously,
as if they had previously known all about it. One high-spirited young
man in particular, being incited thereto by a pair of mischievous bright
eyes in an opposite window, actually descended this fearful precipice
rather than return, to the great peril of life and limb, and manifest
injury to his Sunday clothes.

Dogs, goats, and horses constituted the fauna of our neighborhood.
Possessing the lawless freedom of their normal condition, they still
evinced a tender attachment to man and his habitations. Spirited steeds