United States or Marshall Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
His reason was a sudden determination to change his lodgings, and the consequent necessity of paying his rent a little before it was due. He lodged in a dark street in Westminster, in a spacious old house, very warm, being wainscoted from top to bottom, and furnished with no undue abundance of windows, and those fitted with thick sashes and small panes.
Its walls were weather-worn, its yard was not tidy. The faded curtains at the windows hung crookedly. The glass of the panes was dirty. The entire aspect of the place indicated that there was no woman's hand to make it home. It was commonplace and uninteresting. But the front door was flung open suddenly with a screech of rusty hinges.
The intendant said that within his time a violent hailstorm had broken some of the panes in the arched window, since when the birds, the rains and the snows have come in and done much damage in the old hall. "On the second floor, over the banquet-room, are the private apartments of the last count, and over the drawing-room are the state chambers.
The firelight shone upon a thick coating of frost upon the panes, but no further could he see, so with all his strength he pushed the window open and leaned out into the night. The spruce fir stood in its old place; but it looked very beautiful in its Christmas dress. Beneath it lay a carpet of pure white.
He thought it wise to reconnoitre before proceeding farther, and, peeping through the small leaded panes, he found he could survey the entire apartment. The room into which Droop stood gazing was the common tap-room of the inn, at that moment apparently the scene of a brisk altercation.
Farther up the street a window opened on the second floor, and a servant-maid leant out of it, with her sleeves turned up, and began to clean the panes on the outside. Nothing escaped my notice; I was clear-headed and ready-witted. Everything rushed in upon me with a gleaming distinctness, as if I were suddenly surrounded by a strong light.
Her wrinkled face caught the first gleam of sunlight that fell through the unwashed window panes. "I've done sick nursing ever since I was a child almost; but I've managed mighty well all things considering, and I've saved up enough to keep me out of the poor house when I get too old to go on.
She looked again at her grandfather, and opened her cramped little hand with relief. The back of her neck was tired with her bending posture. She leaned back in the heavy chair to rest it while she waited. The eyelids, grown heavy with her labors, wavered and winked. The rain dripped down the panes, as if it had fallen into a monotonous habit. The sound was soothing. Jewel fell asleep.
The hoarse blast of the ferry-whistle was swept out of hearing, the panes resounded with millions of impacts as the sleet, like thin iron rods, drove against them. An ignoble impulse led me to join the scurrying stampede of commuters towards the warmth and shelter of the waiting-room. There is something personally hostile in a blizzard.
Joan saw Mary Chirgwin's neat hand in the snowy short blinds which crossed the upper windows; and she knew that the geraniums behind the diamond panes of the parlor were her uncle's care. They dwelt indoors, winter and summer, and their lanky, straggling limbs shut out much light.
Word Of The Day