402 SHADOWS CAST BEFORE. 



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 antici- 

 pative 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. Windows 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 pew- 

 ters, and corroded coppers, though now the only room of habi- 

 tation in the house, partook in a measure of the desolation and 

 disorder which had overtaken its fellow apartments of a higher 

 grade. No cricket was ever seen or heard ; but the solitary 

 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 



