If Mr. Jocelyn had been himself he might have provided much innocent and healthful recreation for his family; but usually he was so dreamy and stupid in the evening that he was left to doze quietly in his chair.  His family ascribed his condition to weariness and reaction from his long strain of anxiety; and opium had already so far produced its legitimate results that he connived at their delusion if he did not confirm it by actual assertion.  It is one of the diabolical qualities of this habit that it soon weakens and at last destroys all truth and honor in the soul, eating them out with a corrosive power difficult to explain.

For the first week or two Belle was glad to rest in the evenings from the intolerable weariness caused by standing all day, but the adaptability of the human frame is wonderful, and many at last become accustomed, and, in some sense, inured to that which was torture at first.  Belle was naturally strong and vigorous, and her compact, healthful organism endured the cruel demand made upon it far better than the majority of her companions.  Nature had endowed her with a very large appetite for fun.  For a time her employment, with its novelty, new associations, and small excitements, furnished this, but now her duties were fading into prosaic work, and the child was looking around for something enlivening.  Where in the great city could she find it?  Before their poverty came there were a score of pretty homes like her own in which she could visit schoolmates; her church and Sabbath-school ties brought her into relation with many of her own age; and either in her own home or in those of her friends she took part in breezy little festivities that gave full and healthful scope to her buoyant nature.  She was not over-fastidious now, but when occasionally she went home with some of her companions at the shop, she returned dissatisfied.  The small quarters in which the girls lived rendered little confidential chats—­so dear to girls—­impossible, and she was brought at once into close contact with strange and often repulsive people.  It seemed that the street furnished the only privacy possible, except as she brought girls to her own abode.  Her mother and sister were very considerate in this respect, and welcomed all of her acquaintances who appeared like good, well-meaning girls; and Mildred would either give up her share of their little room for the time, or else take part in their talk in such a genial way as to make the visitors at home as far as they could be with one in whom they recognized their superior.  Their light talk and shop gossip were often exceedingly tiresome to Mildred, but she felt that Belle needed every safeguard within their power to furnish.  And this privilege of welcoming the best companions her circumstances permitted was of great help to Belle, and, for a time, prevented her restless spirit from longing for something more decided in the way of amusement.  Of necessity, however, anything so quiet could not last; but where could the