boys gathered near the archway.  Unheeding, the girl passed in at an open door and felt her way up a staircase; the air was noisome, notwithstanding a fierce draught which swept down the stairs.  She entered a room lighted by a small metal lamp hanging on the wall—­a precaution of Pennyloaf’s own contrivance.  There was no bed, but one mattress lay with a few rags of bed-clothing spread upon it, and two others were rolled up in a corner.  This chamber accommodated, under ordinary circumstances, four persons:  Mr. and Mrs. Candy, Pennyloaf, and a son named Stephen, whose years were eighteen. (Stephen pursued the occupation of a potman; his hours were from eight in the morning till midnight on week-days, and on Sunday the time during which a public-house is permitted to be open; once a month he was allowed freedom after six o’clock.) Against the window was hung an old shawl pierced with many rents.  By the fire sat Mrs. Candy; she leaned forward, her head, which was bound in linen swathes, resting upon her hands.

‘What have you got?’ she asked, in the thick voice of a drunkard, without moving.

‘Eighteenpence; it’s all they’d give me.’

The woman cursed in her throat, but exhibited no anger with Pennyloaf.

‘Go an’ get some tea an’ milk,’ she said, after a pause.  ’There is sugar.  An’ bring seven o’ coals; there’s only a dust.’

She pointed to a deal box which stood by the hearth.  Pennyloaf went out again.

Over the fireplace, the stained wall bore certain singular ornaments.  These were five coloured cards, such as are signed by one who takes a pledge of total abstinence; each presented the signature, ‘Maria Candy,’ and it was noticeable that at each progressive date the handwriting had become more unsteady.  Yes, five times had Maria Candy promised, with the help of God, to abstain,’ &c. &c.; each time she was in earnest.  But it appeared that the help of God availed little against the views of one Mrs. Green, who kept the beer-shop in Rosoman Street, once Mrs. Peckover’s, and who could on no account afford to lose so good a customer.  For many years that house, licensed for the sale of non-spirituous liquors, had been working Mrs. Candy’s ruin; not a particle of her frame but was vitiated by the drugs retailed there under the approving smile of civilisation.  Spirits would have been harmless in comparison.  The advantage of Mrs. Green’s ale was that the very first half-pint gave conscience its bemuddling sop; for a penny you forgot all the cares of existence; for threepence you became a yelling maniac.

Poor, poor creature She was sober to-night, sitting over the fire with her face battered into shapelessness; and now that her fury had had its way, she bitterly repented invoking the help of the law against her husband.  What use? what use?  Perhaps he had now abandoned her for good, and it was certain that the fear of him was the only thing that ever checked her on the ruinous road she would so willingly have quitted.  But for the harm to himself, the only pity was he had not taken her life outright.  She knew all the hatefulness of her existence; she knew also that only the grave would rescue her from it.  The struggle was too unequal between Mrs. Candy with her appeal to Providence, and Mrs. Green with the forces of civilisation at her back.