402 SHADOWS CAST BEFOUE. 



but howsoever it might fare with him, his house seemed 

 more than ever stricken with death-like symptoms of decay. 

 Dolly's remaining energies all sank paralyzed under the last 

 anticipative shock. She relaxed now in those labours of 

 love by which, while her master was present, if she could 

 not keep poverty from his door, she contrived to hide the 

 spectre from his unaccustomed sight. Now, indeed, did she 

 suffer the dust of desertion, real and metaphoric, to fall heavily 

 on our once cheerful and neat abode. She was like a working 

 bee, able to work no longer under bereavement of the hive's 

 head, and our habitation, of which a well-stored hive was once 

 the likeness, resembled now an autumnal wasp's nest doomed 

 to destruction and decay, "\\~indows grew dim ; walls wept, 

 for absence of fires or their master ; doors creaked ; shutters 

 hung loose ; and even the kitchen, with its contracted range, and 

 dulled pewters, and corroded coppers, though now r the only room 

 of habitation in the house, partook in a measure of the desola- 

 tion and disorder which had overtaken its fellow apartments of a 

 higher Grade. No cricket was ever seen or heard : but the soli- 



O CJ 



tary cockroach which had usurped its place was often visible. 



In the garden the ordinary touches of autumn were invested, 

 to me, with more gloomy hues than they had ever worn before. 

 Frosts had been sharp and early, and the dahlias, as they hung 

 black and drooping over the middle walk, seemed to mourn for 

 the admiring master who, in his own pride, had so often 

 propped them up in theirs. One of the October objects of 



