Beaumont Buildings is scarcely the place one would choose in which to

spend a summer's day; for, though they reach unto the heavens, they are,

like most of their kind, somewhat stuffy, the dust of the great city in

all their nooks and corners, and the noise of the crowded life

penetrates even to the topmost flat.

The agent, a man of fine imagination and unlimited descriptive powers,

states that Beaumont Buildings is "situated in a fashionable locality";

but though Fashion may dwell close at hand, and its carriages sometimes

roll luxuriously through the street in which the Buildings tower, the

street is a grimy and rather squalid one, in which most of the houses are

shops--shops of the cheap and useful kind which cater for the poor.

There is always a noise and a blare in Beaumont Street. The butcher not

only displays his joints and "block ornaments" outside his shop, but

proclaims their excellence in stentorian tones; and the grocer and

fruiterer and fishmonger compete with the costermongers, who stand

yelling beside their barrows from early morn to late and gaslit night.

The smells of Beaumont Street are innumerable, and like unto the sea

shells for variety; and the scent of oranges, the pungent odor of fried

fish, from the shop down the side street, and that vague smell familiar

to all who dwell in the heart of London, rise and enter the open

windows.

On the pavement and in the roadway, among the cabs and tradesmen's

carts, the children play and yell and screech; and at night the song of

the intoxicated as he rolls homeward, or is conveyed to the nearest cell

by the guardian of the peace he is breaking, flits across the dreams of

those in the Buildings who are so unfortunate as to sleep lightly; and

they are many.

And yet in a small room of a small flat on the fourth floor of this

Babel of noise and unrest sat Nell.

Eighteen months had passed since she made her sacrifice and left Wolfer

House. The black dress in which she looked so slight, and against which

the ivory pallor of her face was accentuated, was worn as mourning for

Mrs. Lorton; for that estimable lady had genteelly faded away, and Nell

and Dick were alone in this transitory world.

The sun was pouring through the open window, and Nell had dragged her

chair into the angle of the wall just out of the reach of the hot beams,

but still near the window, in the hope of catching something of the

smoke-laden air which away out in the country must be blowing so fresh

and sweetly.




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