CHAPTER XV.
A HOT DAY IN MELBOURNE
A hot, scorching day. The winds having travelled, over hundreds of miles of arid plain and smoking bush, floated into Melbourne, laden with blazing heat. The sky glared down whitely, and the blinding sun scorched up moisture and vegetation with its eye of fire. The very clouds where white with heat, and to look up at them made one dizzy. In the city, mankind panted with thirst and fatigue, and, regardless of consequences, revelled, inordinately and greedily, in ices and cool drinks. Womankind retreated to cellars and shady nooks, and, divested of superfluous attire, indulged, gratefully, in water-melons; and mankind, coming home wearied and parched, joined womankind in her retreat, and lay at her feet, tamely. Dogkind panted, and lolled out its tongue, distressfully; but though it wandered in despair through the streets, it found no relieving moisture in kennel or gutter; and being, by its constitution and laws, debarred from the luxury of ices and cool drinks, it endured agonies of silent suffering. Clerks fell asleep over their ledgers, and storekeepers grew dozy behind their desks. At the sea-side the very waves were too wearied to roll, and lay, supine, beneath the dreadful glare of the sun. The beaches were deserted: not even a crab was to be seen. In the country, the bush smoked and blazed, and wretched oxen strained at their chains, and did their half-a-mile an hour in dire distress. With suffering noses almost touching the ground, they smelt in vain along the earth for liquid life. The drivers with their cabbage-tree hats slouched over their eyes, were too lazy to crack their whips, and too fatigued to swear loudly at their cattle; but, determined not to be cheated of their privilege, they growled and cursed in voices almost inaudible. The leafless trees smoked beneath the glare of the sun, and stretched their bare branches to the sky as if for pity, but got none. On the goldfields, diggers stripped to their shirts, and were glad to hide themselves at the bottom of deep pits, with bottles of lager beer or cold tea by their side; those who could find no such shelter threw themselves upon their rough beds, and longed eagerly for the night. Everywhere, business, except where bare-armed men or muslin-clad barmaids served long drinks to thirsty souls, was at a standstill. Merchants were too lazy to haggle. Percentages were forgotten, and invoices disregarded. Even Zachariah Blemish, dressed in white linen from the top of his head to the sole of his foot, and looking, with his rubicund face, like a white and pink saint, ready and fit to fly heavenward, lolled idly in his sanctum, and refreshed himself with hock and seltzer water. The conjugal Nuttalls were in the deepest misery. The head of the family, Nicholas Nuttall, was in his dressing-room, pouring jugfuls of cold water over his head, as if he were afraid of its taking fire: and, directing his eyes to the bed, beheld thereupon the partner of his bosom, whose face was puffed up with mosquito bites, and who, glaring reproachfully at her husband, said as plainly as eloquent looks could speak, Fiend! behold your handiwork! Walls and pavement were smoking; and all nature, excepting the flies and the fishes, was in a state of misery. The blazing wind was comparable to nothing but the blast from a fiercely-heated furnace, and high and low succumbed to its power.
High and low! Ay, even down to Old Flick, who, in the back-room of his All-Sorts Store, in Old Flick's Thoroughfare, gasped, and growled, and cursed, as he drank his rum-and-water. Old Flick was attired in shirt, trousers, and slippers. Nothing more. His shirt was open at the bosom, thereby displaying a sinewy chest, covered with dirty gray hair; and was tucked up to the shoulders, showing his lean and bony arms. He was not a pleasant object to look upon, with his straggling hair, and his blotched face, and his bloodshot bleary eyes. One might have wondered while looking upon him, Was this man ever a child, and was he ever blessed with a mother's love? One might have so wondered, and, doubting, might have been pardoned for the doubt. For indeed he looked terribly sinful and depraved: a very blot upon humanity. Sitting and drinking and growling, he became conscious of a shadow before him, and looking up and seeing the girl Milly, who had just entered the room, he made a motion as if he would like to spring upon her. She, too, was not pleasant to look upon; for she also had been drinking, and her eyes were bloodshot. Her hair was hanging loosely about her face, and she had a reckless and defiant manner which almost unwomanised her.
"What do you want?" growled Old Flick.
She did not answer him for many moments. She had come there for a purpose, and she knew she was not fit for it, and that she was no match for the crafty man who sat before her. Milly's condition was very pitiable. She depended upon Jim Pizey for support, and she had not received a line from him since his departure from Melbourne. He had left her without wishing her good-bye, but he had sent her a message that Old Flick would give her money when she required it. Depending upon this, when she wanted funds she had applied to the old man, but getting a few shillings from him was like squeezing life's blood from his heart. The process was such a sickening one to Milly, that she had lately but seldom attempted it. He had so wearied her with his whining protestations, that she had not applied to him for assistance for a long time; but now necessity was driving her hard. There was another reason besides the want of money, which induced Milly to visit Old Flick at the present time. He had, she knew, received a letter from Jim, and she wanted to read it. You see, Jim was the only rock the poor girl had to cling to.
As for Old Flick, the sight of Milly was torture to him. He thought he had got rid of her for good, and here she was to torment him again. He knew what she wanted well enough-money, money, always money! But he would not give her a doit-not a doit! He did not think that part of Milly's purpose was to get Jim's letter; he was not aware that she know he had received one. His tribulation would have been sore indeed had he suspected that; for there was something in the letter about Milly which would be enough to drive her mad. "I wish she would die!" he muttered, inly. "What's the use of her? Why don't she die?" If he could, he would have killed her with a look.
"What do you want?" he growled again.
She seized the bottle from the table, and placed it to her lips. Old Flick did not attempt to restrain her. Indeed, he was frightened of her.
"I want money!" Milly exclaimed, with a kind of drunken scream.
"The old cry!" he screamed, in return.
"Yes, the old cry. You thought you weren't going to hear it again, eh! I want money!"
"I haven't any."
"Lies! You're rolling in it. You've enough to fill your grave. I want money."
"You're a pretty article to want money," said Old Flick, with a sneer. "Go and earn it."
"Don't say that again, Flick," said the girl, with a threatening flash in her eyes, "or I'll tear your liver out! Oh, I don't care for your looks! What do you think I've got in me to-day?"
"I don't know, and I don't care," he replied.
"I've got the devil in me!" she cried. "Mind how you let it loose. I feel it here-here!" and she drew her hand, with a nervous twitching of the fingers, across her forehead. "I try to deaden it to sleep with drink, but it won't rest. It dances in my brain, and laughs at me through my eyes! Oh! you're frightened at my talk, are you? What wonder! I'm frightened at it myself."
"You want rest, Milly," the old man said, with a sort of lame compassion in his voice.
"Rest!" she echoed, bitterly. "What rest can I expect or do I deserve? What did I come here for?" she asked herself, in a confused, wandering manner. "I came here to ask you for something, Flick. Not money alone; no, no! something else. I have it!" she steadied herself in an instant. "The letter!"
"The letter!" he repeated, his face turning ashen white.
"The letter!" she reiterated. "The one you received from Jim Pizey yesterday. You have a lie ready! I see it trembling on your lips. Send it back, and mind it don't choke you! Where's the letter?"
"I haven't it."
"Where's the letter?"
"I've burnt it."
"You are a liar!" she said, quietly, looking steadily at him.
"You're drunk!" he cried, in a voice thick with passion, "If you don't go away I'll set the police on you."
"Do!" she replied, laughing scornfully, "and I'll tell them who you are in league with. Who do you think they will believe? You or me? You'll set the peelers on me, will you? You worn-out parcel of bones, it's more than your soul's worth-though that's not worth much. I'll tell them that you are in league with two of the biggest scoundrels in the colony. And I'll prove it too. You shall go out of here into quod, and out of quod into hell, Old Flick! You'll set the peelers on me, will you? Shall I call 'em in?" and she moved towards the door.
He threw one of his evil looks upon her, and, in his shaking voice, told her to stay where she was.
"Give me some drink," exclaimed Milly, taking the bottle as she spoke, and drinking from it again. "Do you know what I am going to do, Flick?" she asked, her mood suddenly changing. "I'm going to kill myself with drink."
"All the better," he growled.
"Right you are!" she returned, recklessly. "I'm tired of my life. It's time I was dead! Look here, Flick; if you don't tell me where Jim is, I'll set the place about your ears."
"I don't know," he whined; "how should I know? What's the use of asking me where he is? I know nothing about him. He wrote me a letter, but you don't think he put his address in it, do you? You ought to know him better than that, Milly!"
"You miserable gray-head, ain't you afraid that your lies will choke you? Ain't you afraid of dying? What an old sinner you are! Do you ever think of the worms creeping over your ugly carcase, and gloating over you when you are in your grave? Do you ever think of the cold slimy earth falling on your face through the coffin, and sucking all the hope out of you, even after you are dead? Ain't you afraid when you think of it? I am! I am!" she exclaimed, with a shuddering shriek; "or I should have killed myself long ago!"
The drunken old man's face twitched with terror as she spoke these dreadful words, and he whined piteously, "Don't, Milly, there's a good girl. Talk of something pleasant."
"I haven't the courage to do it," she continued, in a musing tone, not heeding his remonstrance. "I have thought of it often-have dreamt of it often. I have woke up in the night and seen it looking at me, from the foot of the bed-my thought that seemed to be all eyes, and no shape. It speaks to me, and I can never hear it; it clings about me, and I can never feel it. It takes me through the dark streets to the water side, and I look down and see the stars bidding me come-I see the shadows of the trees moving about at the bottom-and then and then," she said, shudderingly, "I see myself lying in the mud, and things crawling over me-and I run away, I run away!"
Old Flick moved nearer to the wall, and regarded her with cowardly fear.
"If I wasn't afraid of that," she continued, "I should have been out of the world long before now. I bought some poison one day, and was very near taking it. But I got such a fit of shaking all at once, that I threw it on the floor, and stamped on it, and ran away, mad with fright. Did you ever try to take poison, Flick? Pour it in a glass, and look at it for a moment, and you see a lot of devils glaring at you and clutching at you, and you feel a lot of creeping things dancing in your brain, and stirring in your hair, and tingling at your fingers' ends!"
Old Flick shook with fear now, and not with ague. "Don't talk like that, Milly," he cried again, looking fearsomely about him; "do talk of something pleasant."
"Something pleasant!" Milly exclaimed. "What have I got pleasant to talk about? I wish the sun would burst through the ceiling, and strike me dead, and so put an end to it!" and she threw her hair from her face, and looked up wildly. "Do you know, Flick, I think something is going to happen to me! My head is whirling about strangely. I've an old father and mother at home, and I've been thinking of them at odd times, all the day. Father is an old man-a basket-maker-and I can see him as plainly as I see you, sitting down in our little room, weaving the canes, and thinking of me. Yes, I can see him thinking of me. He used to stroke my hair and my face, and call me his pretty Milly. Pretty Milly! That's what they called me at home. I was pretty-I had the prettiest hands!" – she put them close to her eyes, with a caressing motion, and hid her face in them. "I can see father with my eyes shut. He weaves the canes in the back room, sitting by the window. There is the little garden outside, and the two pots of mignonette on the window-sill. And there's the speckled hen that used to eat out of my hand. There is the picture of me on the wall, over the mantel-shelf, with my hair all in curls. Father is smiling at it. And now-now it is raining, and what do you think he is doing? He is looking at me, and crying, and I am lying dead in a basket cradle, with flowers all about me!" (She stood silent for a little while, with her face still buried in her hands, as if she could see the picture she had described.) "He was too fond of me, father was; he was so fond of me that he didn't look after me properly; he used to let me do as I liked."
"Why don't you go home to him?" asked Old Flick, in a voice which he strove to make gentle.
"Home!" she exclaimed. "Home! As I am! What would they say of me, I wonder? No; thank God, they think me dead. But there! I don't want to think of them, and they still keep coming up;" and she passed her hands over her face, confusedly.
"What's the matter, Milly?" Old Flick said, soothingly. "What's made you like this?"
"Drink!" she cried. "Drink and thought. And the more I think, the more my head is filled with awful fancies. Why did Jim go away from me? What right had he to leave me alone by myself?" and here she began to cry. But, seeing that Flick was about to speak, she said, "Stop a minute. I haven't done yet. I must work myself out first, and then I shall be all right. How long is it since you were a boy, Flick?"
"I don't remember," he muttered.
"What happiness! Not to be able to remember! But if you could remember, you would have to go a long way back, Flick; you're old enough to be my grandfather. It isn't so long ago since I was a little girl, and I can't help remembering. Oh, if I could forget! if I could forget!" And throwing herself upon the ground, she sighed, and trembled, and sobbed; and then, as if angry with herself, she bit her white lips, and tried to suppress her passion.
"Now, then, you are more quiet," said Old Flick, after a little while. "Get up, Milly, like a good girl, and go home."
"I'm not a good girl-I'm a bad woman; and," she said, folding her arms resolutely, "I'm not going to stir until you give me what I want, and tell me what I want to know."
"I haven't any money, Milly," whined Old Flick, "and I can't tell you anything you don't know."
"Didn't Jim say, before he left, that you were to give me money when I wanted it?"
"Yes, but he hasn't sent me any, and I have no more to give. I'm a poor man, Milly."
"What was in that letter Jim sent you?"
"That letter?" exclaimed Old Flick, almost instinctively putting his hand to the pocket in which it was hidden.
"Yes, that letter," repeated Milly, her quick eyes noting the old man's action.
"There was nothing in it, Milly, upon my-my honour, and I burnt it."
"All right," Milly said, quietly, rising. "I suppose there was nothing in it, as you say, for you never tell a lie; and I suppose you burnt it, for you never tell a lie; and I suppose you haven't got any money, for you never tell a lie. That's right, ain't it?"
"Yes, that's right," he exclaimed, sullenly.
"And you can tell me what's to become of Jim's baby-for it is Jim's, you know. How am I to keep it?"
"How do I know what's to become of it?"
"I'll kill it," Milly said, composedly.
"Milly!" cried Old Flick, catching her arm.
"Let me go! You don't think I meant it, do you? I haven't come to that yet. No, I won't kill it. I'll do something better," and without another word, Milly walked away.
"A good job she's gone," muttered Old Flick. "I must tell Jim about her. She's getting mischievous. If she had known I had that letter about me, she would have torn it from me, I believe. The cat! Does she know there is anything in the letter about her? No, she can't; she only suspects. I must read it once more, and destroy it. It implicates the whole gang; I must burn it-burn it. What a turn she gave me when she talked about killing the baby! I am glad she's gone;" and, in self-gratulation, Old Flick drank some more rum-and-water, and, raising his eyes, exclaimed-"The devil take the cat! Here she is again!"
And there she was again, sure enough, with her baby in her arms.
"Now then, Old Flick," she said, "I've got rid of all my fancies. When Jim went away, he told me you would give me money as I wanted it, so long as I didn't ask for too much. I haven't asked for too much, have I? You precious old flint, you've taken good care of that. You've screwed me down so tight that I've been obliged to pawn every blessed thing I could lay hands on; and I haven't a shilling left, and haven't anything more to pawn."
"You've plenty of money to get drunk with, anyhow."
"The drink was treated to me. People will give me lush, but they won't give me bread. Can you tell me how I am to keep Jim's baby?"
"How do I know? I suppose you can get your own living."
She gave him another of her threatening looks, and then she asked-
"Are you going to give me some money?"
"I haven't any."
"Very well. I love my baby; let alone that it's mine, it is a pretty little thing. Of course you can't understand how it is a bad girl like me can love an innocent pet like this; but then you never loved anything in your life, and can't be supposed to understand my feeling. I love it dearly, but as I can't keep Jim's baby, and as you are in partnership with Jim, you'd better keep it yourself;" and she laid the baby on the table, where it sprawled contentedly amongst the bottles and glasses.
"What do you mean?" demanded Old Flick, it considerable alarm.
"What do I mean? Just this-I'm going to leave the baby here. You'll have to feed it and wash it. It will be a nice companion for you, and you can bring it up your own way. What a blessed father you'll make!"
"Are you mad?" cried Old Flick, with a rueful look at the baby.
"Not a bit of it. I've often thought what a pity it is you haven't got a lot of young Flicks of your own. Never mind. Here's one you can try your hand upon."
"Take the brat away!"
"Will you give me some money?"
"No!" he snarled.
"Then here's your baby!" Milly said; and taking the child from the table, she placed it dexterously in Old Flick's arms, and moved towards the door.
"Come back, you jade!" roared Old Flick, looking disgustedly at his burden. "Come back, and I'll give you what you want."
"How much now?" asked Milly, with a laugh, standing by the half-open door.
Old Flick fumbled in his pockets, and, with much difficulty, produced three half-crowns.
"Seven-and-six," he said.
"Baby will cost you more than that the first week," said Milly. "Then, how am I to live? 'Tain't half enough.
"I haven't another shilling in the world!" cried Old Flick, tearing at his gray locks in a delirium of drunken despair. "You'll ruin me, you jade!"
"Say two pounds," suggested Milly, regardless of his appeal; "and out with it quick, or I'm off. Now, then, before I count three. One-"
"Milly, dear, say a pound," implored Old Flick.
"Two-"
"Thirty bob!" screamed Old Flick, in anguish.
"Three. I'm off."
"Stop, stop!" roared Old Flick; "here's the money, and I wish you'd kill yourself with it."
"And what did Jim say about me in the letter?" asked Milly, coming back.
"Not a word," said Flick, pretending to consider, as he counted out a pound's worth of silver. "Oh, yes, he did; he sent his love to you. You'll find that right, Milly."
"All right," said Milly, pocketing the money carelessly. "You know, Flick, if you'd like to keep the baby-"
"Take it away-take it away!" cried Old Flick; "and curse you, the pair of you," he added, in an undertone.
"You fool!" exclaimed Milly, scornfully, as she took the baby in her arms, and kissed her. "You gray-headed, cold-hearted, old fool! Did you think for a moment that I would leave this angel from heaven here, for you to contaminate with your filthy breath! Did you think it, old sinner? You might have saved your money, if you weren't a coward as well as a thief. And so you've burnt the letter, eh, Flick!"
"Yes, yes," said Old Flick, as Milly walked away with the child, "it is burnt, sure enough. Phew! what with her, and what with the heat, I'm melting away. How cantankerous she was about the letter! She'd have gone mad if she'd seen it. I must burn it; it isn't safe to keep; but I must copy the address first."
His shaking hand sought his pocket, and drew therefrom the letter. He opened it, and read it again by fits and starts, muttering the while. But when he tried to copy the address, his fingers trembled so that he could not trace the letters.
"I'll wait till the evening, when if s cool," he said, returning the letter to his pocket, "when it's cool. The devil take the sun! It's enough to scorch one to a cinder!"
As a counteractive, Old Flick applied himself industriously to his rum-and-water, which he swallowed with a running accompaniment of oaths and curses. Now, as too much rum-and-water will make a man drunk, and as Old Flick had drunk a great deal too much rum-and-water, and still continued drinking it, he soon got very drunk indeed-so drunk, that he began to cry, and to beat his breast, and to tear his hair, and to shake so, that the table trembled when he leant upon it.
"To scorch one to a cinder," he mumbled, pursuing his previous remark. "Supposing it should come, and scorch me to a cinder!"
He held up his hands, as if to ward off a blow, and as he looked about him, his fevered fancy conjured a thousand crawling things upon the ceiling and the walls. With sight-terror fixed he gazed at them as they crept nearer and nearer to him. As fast as he brushed them away, they came again. In desperation he drank more rum, and strove to rid himself of the terrible fancies.
"Go away-go away," he cried, menacing them with impotent fingers; "I know what it is. I've been drinking too much. I must leave it off, or I shall have the deliriums." To strengthen his good resolution he applied himself again to the bottle. "I'm better now. What a cat that Milly is! Beast-beast-beast! Why don't she die? What good is she in the world? She wished to frighten me by asking me if I had ever tried to take poison. What did she mean by 'the devils in the glass?' Ugh! I can see them glaring at me!" – and Old Flick staggered to his feet in dire terror, and then dropped down in a drunken swoon.
It was late in the afternoon now, and people began to breathe more freely. A slight but refreshing breeze set in from the sea, and the cooler air, floating through the streets, brought a sweet relief to exhausted nature. To no person did the grateful change bring more satisfaction than to Grif, whose sufferings during the day had caused him to fret exceedingly. The whole of that day, as he stood blistering in the sun, he had been propounding questions to himself-questions to which he could find only one answer, dictated by hunger and misery. Why was he so unfortunate? All other boys were not so. He was trying hard to be good, and something would not let him. He felt that his requirements were modest, that he did not ask for too much. The constant pressure of misery had caused him to look about him and compare his condition with that of other boys. There were plenty of them walking the streets-well-fed, well-dressed boys; not sons of gentlemen, but working boys-boys occupying the social sphere to which he aspired. What had he done that his lot should not be as comfortable as theirs appeared to be? He was sure he was trying hard enough to deserve it. "I've been bad, I know," he reflected, "but I can't make out as it was all my fault. I couldn't help it. There's father, he was bad, and in course I was bad too; I didn't know nothin' else. Then Ally come, and she made me good-leastways, she tried to. But what's the good of bein' good? I usen't to be 'arf so hungry when I was bad!" This was the argument which clenched the matter. When he was bad, his stomach was better supplied, as a rule, than now that he was good.
Not only was Grif's mind argumentative, but his nature was sensitive. How this came about was strange, for his father's nature was brutal enough; he did not remember his mother, and had never given her a thought. His sensitiveness was a positive misfortune; it intensified his sufferings just now. What with the awful heat, which made his heart faint and sick, the hunger which gnawed at his vitals, and the sorrow he felt at being parted for ever from Little Peter, his condition was an utterly miserable one. He could not battle against such influences; they were too powerful for him. He felt an irresistible conviction that he should never see Little Peter again. "I wonder if he ever thinks of me?" Grif mused; and in his then despondent mood he groaned at the thought that all remembrance of him was wiped out of Little Peter's mind. "No matter, it was all for his good. He's a precious sight better off where he is, I'll be bound. I suppose he's got good clothes and good boots, and plenty of grub. That's jolly for him, poor Little Peter! If he was here to-day, it'd pretty well settle him, I think." There was some small consolation in this reflection, and Grif tried to make the most of it.
From this it will be perceived how unfortunate Grif had been in his new vocation. Honesty and morality had not taken to him kindly. As a moral shoeblack, his career had been the very reverse of prosperous, notwithstanding that he had striven to deserve better. He had attended some meetings of the Moral Bootblacking Boys' Reformatory, and had heard a great deal about morality; and, albeit he would have been considerably perplexed if he had been asked to define the meaning of the word, it could not but be presumed that he had been much edified by the moral essays and exhortations to which he had listened. And yet his mental condition, when he came away from those meetings, was one of perplexity. He could not see the connection between morality and a bellyful of food. "It's all very well," he would mutter, "for them coves who's got lots to eat and drink to talk about morality; but what good does it do me?" Exhortations, moral lessons, pious sermons, would often be given by well-meaning men at the meetings of the Moral Bootblacking Boys' Reformatory. At one of these meetings, the speaker had fixed Grif with his eye during the whole of his discourse, which occupied nearly an hour. The burden of his exhortation was an oppressive beseeching to Grif to "look up." By day and by night, awake or asleep, standing still or walking, always through his life, Grif was entreated to "look up." Never mind how persistent misfortune might be in persecuting him, never mind what calamities might overtake him, everything would come right if he would continue to "look up." "But how can I do that," Grif asked of himself, "when I'm forced to be always lookin' down?" whereby he meant, literally, looking down at the boots of the passers-by to see if they wanted polishing. Which coarse perversion of the pious speaker's exhortation was another proof of the baseness of Grif's nature.
Many such sermons did Grif hear; they sounded well, all of them. But they shrank into very nothingness when he applied them to his own case. To him they were nothing; they did him no good. Grif wanted practical arguments. Theory was valueless to him. As for good advice he had enough of that, goodness knows. He received it by the bushel; it was literally heaped upon him. But he did not get an ounce of meat out of it for all its virtue. He was an especial object of attention to Mr. Zachariah Blemish. That great man and princely merchant had at various times condescended to be gracious to Grif by word of mouth. Mr. Blemish would inquire of Grif how he was getting along, and Grif did not have courage to answer that he was getting along badly, or rather that he was not getting along at all. It would have sounded like an impeachment of the conduct of the great man in providing him with the implements of his occupation. "That is right-that is right," Mr. Blemish would remark. "You are moral, are you not?" "Very moral, Sir," Grif would answer, humbly. "Very good; mind you keep moral," Mr. Blemish would exhort. And Grif invariably ducked his head and promised that he would keep very moral. But when the great merchant was gone, Grif would shrug his shoulders, and ponder and puzzle over the good advice given him without arriving at any satisfactory conclusion.
Occasionally he visited Alice, and argued matters with her. Alice truly was his good angel. Many and many a time had they two sat together, he listening to her gentle voice, she striving to impress upon him truths which would have seemed to him the bitterest of lies if he had judged them by the light of his hard experience. But Grif did not interpret her words by that light. If he did not understand, he believed; his nature did not rebel against her sweet words and gentle voice as it did against the sermons preached at the Moral Reformatory. What Alice said to him was good, was true, and he was satisfied. It was happiness to hear her, to sit near her, to look up into her face now and then: it was more than happiness, it was heaven. With such an influence upon him, Grif could not be otherwise than good. She kept him from crime. Bad promptings had no chance with him when he thought of her. Ill as she could afford it, poor girl, she fed him often, although every day her means grew less and less, and although Hunger, with its white eyes and despairing face, crept nearer and nearer at every turn of the hour-glass. All she could do was to wait for it, and shudder at its near approach. The first few weeks after her husband left her, she had heard regularly from him, and had received long letters filled with love, and tenderness, and hope. And she would read them again and again, and cry for joy over them, and press them to her lips, to her heart, and place them under her pillow at night. Many a happy dream did they bring her, and she would rise in the morning with a light heart, hopeful and smiling. But lately his letters had become shorter and shorter, and the intervals between them longer. And now three weeks had passed, and she had received no letter. Three or four times every day she went to the post-office, until her face became so familiar to the clerk that, directly he saw it looking almost beseechingly through the little window, he would shake his head without waiting for her to speak. How hurriedly she would throw on her bonnet and shawl, and hasten to the little window, and how sadly and slowly she would walk back to her poor lodgings, heartsore and disappointed! That little window! It might have been likened unto heaven's gate, or the gate of despair. Sometimes, when she reached it, panting, she lingered before she asked, as if fearful to have her hope destroyed. That would be mostly when there were no other applicants; but when there was a crowd round it, drawn thither by the arrival of an important mail, she would take her stand among them, and burn with impatience until her turn came. Then she would think it cruel that others had letters and she had none. Many of them had three, four, a dozen, and she not one! The pleased expressions upon the faces of women who opened their letters and read as they walked, made her feel as she ought not to have felt; and to drive away envious thoughts she would lower her veil, and soon could see nothing through her blinding tears. The last letter she had received from Richard was written in a very despondent mood, and that made her more anxious to hear from him. There are some men who cannot fight with the world-who cannot battle with misfortune. The first blow floors them, and they lie helpless, and make no effort to rise. There are others who, at every knock-down blow, jump up again, hurt but not killed, and who, to speak metaphorically, square up at misfortune with courage and vigour. Richard Handfield was one of the former, and because he did not find a rich patch of gold at the bottom of the first hole he sank, he whimpered at Fate, and did not care to try again. All that Alice could glean from his last letter was, that misfortune pursued him and mocked at his efforts. That was the way he expressed it; he chose to believe that the world had a special spite against him, and that he, of all the hundreds of thousands of soldiers who are fighting life's battles, was singled out for the victim. The fault, which was in himself, he laid upon fate; he was partial to the common platitude, "fate was against him." He was naturally indolent, and if he had known how to work he would scarcely have cared to do so. There are thousands of men of this type in the world.