Just then he had taken up visiting the Dolphin, and the Dolphin had exercised the influence it might be expected to exercise over him. Many a church has failed in its duty, but places like the Dolphin never fall short in this particular! Not they; they have their own master to serve, and they serve him well. They go warily but surely to work, beginning with the bodies of men and women, and ending with their souls. Can it be possible that if the Church, too, began with the bodies of men, it would have more success? This may be so; there is such a thing as learning even of an enemy. The Dolphin having got Timbs within its clutches, quietly, but surely, effected his ruin. He was a very fine man when he entered those doors; he had great physical power; he stood six feet high. Those were the days, when, in full work, strong in body, vigorous and shrewd in intellect, Timbs had owned a small house of his own in not too poor a street; a house where geraniums flourished in the windows, and white muslin curtains graced the best sitting-room. Those were the palmy days remembered so well by Patty and Molly, when mother possessed a nice bonnet and shawl, and father and she went for a walk in the Park on Sunday evenings. In those days mother's face was smiling and her cheeks rosy, and she had a pleasant word for every one; in those days, too, father used to kiss them, and bring home for their edification that wonderful book of birds in penny parts. If there was anything that Molly and Patty still loved, it was that bird book, carefully stitched together, and bound in a brown linen cover. That book they never would allow to go to the pawnshop; it was the only thing left to them of their halcyon days. But these days were now all over; from the time the Dolphin had received father into its deadly embrace, this pleasant state of things had passed away. Ruin had come,--gradually, of course, but none the less surely. Down, step after step, had the family descended; each fresh child at its birth opening its eyes in a poorer room, on poorer surroundings.