Rickety dwellings of undoubted fashion, but of a capacity to

hold nothing comfortably except a dismal smell, looked like the last

result of the great mansions' breeding in-and-in; and, where their

little supplementary bows and balconies were supported on thin iron

columns, seemed to be scrofulously resting upon crutches.

Here and there a Hatchment, with the whole science of Heraldry in it,

loomed down upon the street, like an Archbishop discoursing on Vanity.

The shops, few in number, made no show; for popular opinion was as

nothing to them. The pastrycook knew who was on his books, and in

that knowledge could be calm, with a few glass cylinders of dowager

peppermint-drops in his window, and half-a-dozen ancient specimens of

currant-jelly. A few oranges formed the greengrocer's whole concession

to the vulgar mind. A single basket made of moss, once containing

plovers' eggs, held all that the poulterer had to say to the rabble.

Everybody in those streets seemed (which is always the case at that hour

and season) to be gone out to dinner, and nobody seemed to be giving the

dinners they had gone to. On the doorsteps there were lounging footmen

with bright parti-coloured plumage and white polls, like an extinct race

of monstrous birds; and butlers, solitary men of recluse demeanour, each

of whom appeared distrustful of all other butlers. The roll of carriages

in the Park was done for the day; the street lamps were lighting; and

wicked little grooms in the tightest fitting garments, with twists in

their legs answering to the twists in their minds, hung about in pairs,

chewing straws and exchanging fraudulent secrets. The spotted dogs who

went out with the carriages, and who were so associated with splendid

equipages that it looked like a condescension in those animals to come

out without them, accompanied helpers to and fro on messages. Here and

there was a retiring public-house which did not require to be supported

on the shoulders of the people, and where gentlemen out of livery were

not much wanted.

This last discovery was made by the two friends in pursuing their

inquiries. Nothing was there, or anywhere, known of such a person as

Miss Wade, in connection with the street they sought. It was one of the

parasite streets; long, regular, narrow, dull and gloomy; like a brick

and mortar funeral. They inquired at several little area gates, where

a dejected youth stood spiking his chin on the summit of a precipitous

little shoot of wooden steps, but could gain no information. They walked

up the street on one side of the way, and down it on the other, what

time two vociferous news-sellers, announcing an extraordinary event that

had never happened and never would happen, pitched their hoarse voices

into the secret chambers; but nothing came of it. At length they stood

at the corner from which they had begun, and it had fallen quite dark,

and they were no wiser.




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