In an ascending road, quiet and tree-shadowed, where the dwellings on either side were for the most part old and small, though here and there a brand-new edifice on a larger scale showed that the neighbourhood was undergoing change such as in our time destroys the picturesque in all London suburbs, the cheery dreamer chanced to turn his eyes upon a spot of desolation which aroused his curiosity and set his fancy at work.  Before him stood three deserted houses, a little row once tenanted by middle-class folk, but now for some time unoccupied and unrepaired.  They were of brick, but the fronts had a stucco facing cut into imitation of ashlar, and weathered to the sombrest grey.  The windows of the ground floor and of that above, and the fanlights above the doors, were boarded up, a guard against unlicensed intrusion; the top story had not been thought to stand in need of this protection, and a few panes were broken.  On these dead frontages could be traced the marks of climbing plants, which once hung their leaves about each doorway; dry fragments of the old stem still adhered to the stucco.  What had been the narrow strip of fore-garden, railed from the pavement, was now a little wilderness of coarse grass, docks, nettles, and degenerate shrubs.  The paint on the doors had lost all colour, and much of it was blistered off; the three knockers had disappeared, leaving indications of rough removal, as if—­which was probably the case—­they had fallen a prey to marauders.  Standing full in the brilliant sunshine, this spectacle of abandonment seemed sadder, yet less ugly, than it would have looked under a gloomy sky.  Goldthorpe began to weave stories about its musty squalor.  He crossed the road to make a nearer inspection; and as he stood gazing at the dishonoured thresholds, at the stained and cracked boarding of the blind windows, at the rusty paling and the broken gates, there sounded from somewhere near a thin, shaky strain of music, the notes of a concertina played with uncertain hand.  The sound seemed to come from within the houses, yet how could that be?  Assuredly no one lived under these crazy roofs.  The musician was playing ‘Home, Sweet Home,’ and as Goldthorpe listened it seemed to him that the sound was not stationary.  Indeed, it moved; it became more distant, then again the notes sounded more distinctly, and now as if the player were in the open air.  Perhaps he was at the back of the houses?

On either side ran a narrow passage, which parted the spot of desolation from inhabited dwellings.  Exploring one of these, Goldthorpe found that there lay in the rear a tract of gardens.  Each of the three lifeless houses had its garden of about twenty yards long.  The bordering wall along the passage allowed a man of average height to peer over it, and Goldthorpe searched with curious eye the piece of ground which was nearest to him.  Many a year must have gone by since any gardening was done here.  Once upon a time the useful and ornamental had both