Some are lucky enough to meet with few obstacles, some are plucky enough
to over-ride 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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