No principles are better known than the influences of soil, climate, darkness, and light upon a growing plant.  If the truth could be appreciated that circumstances color life and character just as surely, marring, distorting, dwarfing, or beautifying and developing, according as they are friendly or adverse, the workers in the moral vineyard, instead of trying to obtain fruit from sickly vines, whose roots grope in sterility, and whose foliage is poisoned, would bring the richness of opportunity to the soil and purify the social atmosphere.  Immature Belle, in spite of all the influences for good from her mother, her sister, and Roger, could scarcely reside where she did and grow pure and womanly.  She was daily compelled to see and hear too much that was coarse, evil, and debasing.

She knew that Roger was a friend, and nothing more—­that his whole heart was absorbed in Mildred—­and her feminine nature, stimulated by the peculiarities of her lot, craved warmer attentions.  In her impoverished condition, and with her father’s character becoming generally known, such attentions would not naturally come from young men whom those who loved her best could welcome.  She was growing restless under restrictions, and her crowded, half-sheltered life was robbing her of womanly reserve.  These undermining influences worked slowly, imperceptibly, but none the less certainly, and she recognized the bold, evil admiration which followed her more and more unshrinkingly.

Mr. Jocelyn’s condition was no longer a secret, and he often, in common with other confirmed habitues, increased the effects of opium by a free use of liquor.  He therefore had practically ceased to be a protector to his daughters.  Fred and Minnie, in spite of all the broken-hearted and failing mother could do, were becoming little street Arabs, learning all too soon the evil of the world.

Since the revelation of her father’s condition Mildred had finally relinquished her class at the mission chapel.  Her sensitive spirit was so shadowed by his evil that she felt she would be speechless before children who might soon learn to associate her name with a vice that would seem to them as horrible as it was mysterious.  Bread and shelter she must obtain, but she was too fear-haunted, too conscious of the shame to which she was linked, to face the public on any occasion not connected with her daily toil.

The pride characteristic of American people who have lapsed from a better condition was intensified by her Southern birth and prejudices.  More than hunger, cold, and even death, she feared being recognized, pointed out, stared at, and gossiped about, while the thought of receiving charity brought an almost desperate look into her usually clear blue eyes.  Therefore she shrank from even Mr. Wentworth, and was reticent on all topics relating to their domestic affairs.  She knew that there were many families whom he was almost sustaining through crises of illness and privation;