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The weeping branches of the willow, interspersed here and there, as if to invest the picture with a touching melancholy, sway gently to and fro; the leaves of the silvery poplar tremble and reflect their shadows on the fresh waters; and the flitting gas-lights mingle their gleams, play and sport over the rippled surface, coquet with the tripping star-beams, then throw fantastic lights over the swaying foliage; and from beneath the massive branches of trees, there shines out, in bold relief, the marble porticoes and lintels of stately looking mansions.
One game followed another, Mary Lou prefacing each with a firm, "Now, no more after this one, Sue," and a mention of the time. It was like many of their evenings, like three hundred evenings a year. The room grew warm, the gas-lights crept higher and higher, flared noisily, and were lowered. Mary Lou unfastened her collar, Susan rumpled her hair.
The lame man did not linger long, however, but hurried onwards until he reached that quarter of the city near to the Bank of England, where very poor and wretched people lived upon wondrously little of that gold which lay in such huge quantities so near them. In the back slums of this region there were no bright gas-lights.
To fill its milk and cream jugs, 13,000 cows are kept. To light it at night, 360,000 gas-lights fringe the streets, consuming, every twenty-four hours, 13,000,000 cubic feet of gas; while the private consumption of gas in a year amounts to 10,000,000,000 cubic feet.
Besides this, there were gas-lights burning with a white flame; but this illumination was not half so interesting as that of the torches, which indicated human struggle. All this time there were myriad voices shouting, "SENZA MOCCOLO!" and mingling into one long roar.
The materials employed for maintaining a light in this chauffer were, doubtless, similar to those in the ancient cressets, or lights of the watch, which were in use not only as beacons, but as common street-lights, before either oil or gas-lights were known.
Margaret, changing her dress in a room that was insufferably hot, because the shades must be down, and the gas-lights as high as possible, reflected that another forty-eight hours would see her speeding back to the world of cool, awninged interiors, uniformed maids, the clink of iced glasses, the flash of white sails on blue water. She could surely afford for that time to be patient and sweet.
You look down the long perspective of Oxford-street, the gas-lights mournfully reflected on the wet pavement, and can discern no speck in the road to encourage the belief that there is a cab or a coach to be had—the very coachmen have gone home in despair.
It could be seen swirling past the gas-lights, which it seemed to put out at intervals. The pavement was as slippery as on a frosty night after rain, and all sorts of evil smells seemed to come up from the bowels of the houses the stench of cellars, drains, sewers, squalid kitchens to mingle with the horrible savour of this wandering fog.
An American clock ticked on the mantel-shelf, a fire burned in the grate behind a high wire screen. The unshaded gas-lights gave the room a dreary aspect it need not have had otherwise. The only occupant of the room was Mary Gray, who sat at a small table working a typewriter.
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