He stopped. The old Chartist was still beside him, tears
rolling down his cheeks into his beard.
Courtier saw Miltoun come forward, and stand, unsmiling, deathly pale.
PART II
CHAPTER I
At three o'clock in the afternoon of the nineteenth of July little Ann
Shropton commenced the ascent of the main staircase of Valleys House,
London. She climbed slowly, in the very middle, an extremely small white
figure on those wide and shining stairs, counting them aloud. Their
number was never alike two days running, which made them attractive to
one for whom novelty was the salt of life.
Coming to that spot where they branched, she paused to consider which of
the two flights she had used last, and unable to remember, sat down. She
was the bearer of a message. It had been new when she started, but was
already comparatively old, and likely to become older, in view of
a design now conceived by her of travelling the whole length of the
picture gallery. And while she sat maturing this plan, sunlight flooding
through a large window drove a white refulgence down into the heart of
the wide polished space of wood and marble, whence she had come. The
nature of little Ann habitually rejected fairies and all fantastic
things, finding them quite too much in the air, and devoid of sufficient
reality and 'go'; and this refulgence, almost unearthly in its
travelling glory, passed over her small head and played strangely with
the pillars in the hall, without exciting in her any fancies or any
sentiment.
Pages:
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193