Mrs Frog sinks Deeper and Deeper.

“Nobody cares,” said poor Mrs Frog, one raw afternoon in November, as she entered her miserable¹ dwelling², where the main pieces of furniture were a rickety table, a broken chair, and a heap of straw, while the minor³ pieces were so insignificant⁴ as to be unworthy of mention. There was no fire in the grate, no bread in the cupboard, little fresh air in the room and less light, though there was a broken unlighted candle stuck in the mouth of a quart bottle which gave promise of light in the future—light enough at least to penetrate⁵ the November fog which had filled the room as if it had been endued⁶ with a pitying desire to throw a veil over such degradation⁷ and misery⁸.

We say degradation, for Mrs Frog had of late taken to “the bottle” as a last solace⁹ in her extreme misery, and the expression of her face, as she cowered¹⁰ on a low stool beside the empty grate and drew the shred¹¹ of tartan shawl round her shivering form, showed all too clearly that she was at that time under its influence. She had been down to the river again, more than once, and had gazed into its dark waters until she had very nearly made up her mind to take the desperate leap, but God in mercy had hitherto interposed. At one time a policeman had passed with his weary “move on”—though sometimes he had not the heart to enforce his order. More frequently a little baby-face had looked up from the river with a smile, and sent her away to the well-known street where she would sit in the familiar door-step watching the shadows on the window-blind until cold and sorrow drove her to the gin-palace to seek for the miserable comfort to be found there.

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