A rainy November afternoon was drawing to its close. The sun had set in a haze¹ of fog, to which it gave a fleeting² warmth of colour. The street lamps were lit, and chinks of light showed here and there through the shuttered windows of the tall, dingy³ houses in a dull old square not far from Euston Station.
Yes, chinks of light were coming from almost every house, casting little gleams of brightness on to the wet pavements and rusty⁴ iron bars guarding the areas; but from one, the last in the square, considerably⁵ more was to be seen.
Uncertain blobs of light, now broad, now narrow, from the windows of the dining-room, suggested that the curtains were being drawn⁶ back impatiently every few minutes, that someone
[8]
 might look out into the uninviting darkness; and at least three times in one half-hour a broad blaze streaming out into the night assured the passers-by that the hall door of Number 20 had been opened wide, despite the fog and rain.
If they had paused at such a moment they might have seen a slender figure, with brown hair blown away from her bright face, and eager eyes that searched the familiar square, regardless of the cold, until a call from within made her slowly close the door and return into the brightness that looked doubly bright after the darkness without.
“Father and Hugh won’t come any the quicker because you send a draught⁷ right through the house, dear!” a pleasant-looking girl of two or three-and-twenty remarked, as Sydney came dancing and singing into the shabby school-room after her third unsuccessful journey to the door; “they are hardly ever in before half-past five, you know.”
“It feels like half-past six, at least!” cried Sydney. “Oh, dear! oh, dear! I’ve never known half-past five so awfully⁸ long in coming!”

分享到：