'Pray go upstairs fust, gentleman,' said she; 'I can't think o' goin'
up fust, an' lettin' my darter's kind wisiter foller behind like a
sarvint. I 'opes we knows our manners better nor that comes to in
Primrose Court.'
'None of this foolery now, woman,' said I. 'There's a time for
everything, you know.'
'How right he is!' she exclaimed, nodding to the flickering candle
in her hand. 'There's a time for everything an' this is the time for
makin' a peep-show of my pore darter's body. Oh, yes!'
I mounted a shaky staircase, the steps of which were, some of them,
so broken away that the ascent was no easy matter. The miserable
light from the woman's candle, as I entered the room, seemed suddenly
to shoot up in a column of dazzling brilliance that caused me to
close my eyes in pain, so unnaturally sensitive had they been
rendered by the terrible expectance of the sight that was about to
sear them.
When I re-opened my eyes, I perceived that in the room there was one
window, which looked like a trap-door; on the red pantiles of the
opposite roof lay a smoke-dimmed sheet of moonlight.
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