Transcriber's Notes:
1. Page scan source: Google Books
https://books.google.com/books?id=yZ4pAQAAIAAJ
(the University of California)
2. [=e] indicates a macron over "e"
In the parish of Stepney, in the county of Middlesex, therelived,amidst the hundreds of thousands of human bees who throng thatovercrowded locality, a family composed of four persons--mother,father, and two children, boy and girl--who owned the surprising nameof Marvel. They had lived in their hive for goodness knows how manyyears. The father's father had lived there and died there; the fatherhad been married from there; and the children had been born there. Thebees in the locality, who elbowed each other and trod upon eachother's toes, were poor and common bees, and did not make much honey.Some of them made just enough to live upon; and a good many of them,now and then, ran a little short. The consequence was, that they couldnot store any honey for a rainy day, and were compelled to labor andtoil right through the year, in cold weather and in warm weather, insunshine and in rain. In which respect they were worse off than otherbees we know of that work in the summer and make themselves cosey inthe winter.
The bees in the neighborhood being common and poor, it was naturalthat the neighborhood itself should partake of the character of itsinhabitants. But, common and poor as it was, it was not too common nortoo poor for love to dwell in it. Love did reside there; not only inthe hive of the Marvels, but in hundreds of other hives, tenanted bythe humblest of humble bees.
George Marvel had married for love; and, lest the reader shouldsuppose that the contract was one-sided, it may be as well to mentionthat George Marvel's wife had also married for love. They fell in lovein the way, and they married in the usual way; and, happy andsatisfied with each other, they did not mar their enjoyment of thethen present by thinking of the sharp stones which, from the verycircumstances of their position, were pretty sure to dot the road oftheir future lives. There are many such simple couples in the worldwho believe that the future is carpeted with velvet grass, with thesun always shining upon it, and who find themselves all too soonstumbling over a dark and rocky thoroughfare.
It was not long before the Marvels came to the end of their littlebit of carpet sunshine; yet, when they got upon the stones, theycontrived by industry and management to keep their feet. George Marvelwas a wood-turner by trade, and earned on an average about thirty-twoshillings a week. What with a little new furniture now and then, and alittle harmless enjoyment now and then, and a few articles ofnecessary clothing now and then, and the usual breakfasts, dinners,and teas, with a little bit of supper now and then, the thirty-twoshillings a week were pretty well and pretty fully employed. So welland so fully were those weekly shillings employed, that it was often avery puzzling matter to solve that problem which millions of humanatoms are studying at this prese