forming a conviction that the end of
Simcox's quarter-days were worse then their
commencement.

Nor will you be surprised that "executions"
in Simcox's lttle house in Carolina-terrace,
Albany-road, Camberwell, were of frequent
occurrence; that writs against him were
always "out," and the brokers always "in."
That he was as well known in the county
court as the judge. That orders for payment
were always coming due and never being
paid. His creditors never arrested him,
however. If they did so they knew he would
lose his situation; so the poor man went on
from week to week, and from month to
month, borrowing here and borrowing there,
obtaining small advances from loan societies
held at public-houses, robbing Peter to pay
Paul—always in a muddle, in short; but still
smoking his nightly pipes, and drinking his
nightly glasses, and singing his nightly songs;
the latter with immense applause at the
"Admiral Benbow."

I don't think Simcox's worldly position
was at all improved by his having married (in
very early life, and direct from the finishing
establishment of the Misses Gimp, at
Hammersmith) a young lady highly accomplished
in the useful and productive arts of tambour-
work and Poonah painting; but of all domestic
or household duties considerably more
ignorant than a Zooloo Kaffir. When Simcox
had run through his money, an operation he
performed with astonishing celerity, Mrs. Simcox,
finding herself with three daughters of
tender age and a ruined husband, took refuge
in a food of tears; subsequently met the
crisis of misfortune with a nervous fever;
and ultimately subsided into permanent ill
health, curl papers, and shoes down at heel.

When the events took place herein narrated,
the three daughters of Mr. and Mrs. Simcox
were all grown up. Madeline, aged twenty-
two, was a young lady of surprising altitude,
with shoulders of great breadth and sharpness
of outline, with very large black eyes and
very large black ringlets, attributes of which
she was consciously proud, but with a nose
approaching to—what shall I say?—the snub.
Chemists' assistants had addressed acrostics
to her; and the young man at the circulating
library was supposed to be madly in love
with her. Helena, daughter number two,
aged twenty, was also tall, had also black
eyes, black ringlets, white resplendent shoulders,
was the beloved of apothecaries, and
the Laura of Petrarchs in the linen drapery-
line. These young ladies were both
acknowledged, recognised, established as real
beauties in the Camberwellian district. They
dressed, somehow, in the brightest and most
variegated colours; they had, somehow, the
prettiest of bonnets, the tightest of gloves,
the neatest of kid boots. Their sabbatical
entrance to the parish church always created
a sensation. The chemist's assistant kissed
his hand as they passed; the young man at
the circulating library laid down his book
and sighed; passing young ladies envied and
disparaged; passing young gentlemen
admired and aspired; yet, somehow, Miss
Madeline would be twenty-three next birthday,
and Miss Helena twenty-one, and no
swain had yet declared himself in explicit
terms; no one had said "I have a hundred a
year with a prospect of an advance: take it,
my heart, and hand." Old Muggers, indeed,
the tailor of Acacia Cottages, the friend,
creditor, and boon companion of Simcox,
had intimated, in his cups, at the "Admiral
Benbow," his willingness to marry either of
the young ladies; but his matrimonial proposals
generally vanished with his inebriety;
and he was besides known to be a dreadfully
wicked old man, addicted to drinking, smoking,
and snuff-taking. As a climax of villany,
he was supposed to have two wives already,
alive and resident in different parts of the
provinces.

And daughter number three—have I forgotten
her? Not by any means. Was she a beauty?
No. In the opinion of her sisters, Camberwell,
and of the chemist's assistant, she was
not a beauty. She had dark eyes; but they
were neither brilliant nor piercing. She had
dark hair; but wore it in no long or resplendent
ringlets. She was an ordinary girl, "a plain
little thing" (according to the Camberwell
opinion); there was "nothing about her" in
the eyes of the chemist's assistant.

This young person, (Bessy by name), from
the earliest periods of authentic record to the
mature age of sixteen, had occupied, in the
Simcox household, an analogous position to
that of the celebrated Cinderella. She did not
exactly sit in the chimney-corner among the
ashes: but she lighted the fire, waited upon,
dressed, and was otherwise the humble
and willing drudge of her accomplished
relatives. She did not exactly dress in rags; but
she trotted about the house and neighbourhood
in a shabby brown merino frock, which
she had wofully outgrown, a lamentable old
beaver bonnet, and a faded Paisley shawl,
which held a sort of middle rank in appearance,
between a duster and a pocket-
handkerchief well to do in the world. As a child,
she was punished for the things she did not
do, and doubly punished for those she did do.
As a girl, she ran of errands, fetched the beer,
lighted the fire (as I have said), read the
sentimental novels to mamma as she lay upon
the sofa, and accompanied her sisters on the
piano-forte when they rehearsed those famous
songs and duets with which they did terrific
execution in the Camberwell circles.

Honest Simcox, like a stupid, undiscerning,
shiftless man as he was, did not entertain the
domestic or Camberwell opinion concerning
Bessy. He maintained that she had more
sense in her little finger than her sisters put
together (with his wife into the bargain, the
honest fellow thought, I dare swear, though
he did not dare to say so). He called her his