Some are lucky enough to meet with few obstacles, some are plucky
enough to override them, but in the greater number of cases, if people
are saved at all they are saved so as by fire.
While Ernest was with me Ellen was looking out for a shop on the
south side of the Thames near the "Elephant and Castle," which was
then almost a new and a very rising neighbourhood. By one o'clock
she had found several from which a selection was to be made, and
before night the pair had made their choice.
Ernest brought Ellen to me. I did not want to see her, but could not
well refuse. He had laid out a few of his shillings upon her wardrobe,
so that she was neatly dressed, and, indeed, she looked very pretty
and so good that I could hardly be surprised at Ernest's infatuation
when the other circumstances of the case were taken into
consideration. Of course we hated one another instinctively from the
first moment we set eyes on one another, but we each told Ernest
that we had been most favourably impressed.
Then I was taken to see the shop. An empty house is like a stray dog
or a body from which life has departed. Decay sets in at once in every
part of it, and what mould and wind and weather would spare, street
boys commonly destroy.
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