It was evening, and the shabbiness of the apartment was all the gloomier for the light of a small kerosene lamp standing on the bare deal table.

At one end of the table--is this Deborah?
My little sister, dressed in an ugly gray jacket, sat motionless in the lamplight, her fair head drooping, her little hands folded on the edge of the table.

At sight of her I grew suddenly old.

It was merely that she was a shy little girl, unbecomingly dressed, and perhaps a little pale from underfeeding.

But to me, at that moment, she was the personification of dejection, the living symbol of the fallen family state.
Of course my sober mood did not last long.