“I’m sure there’s nothing I should like to part with,” Pinnie returned; and while she surveyed the scene Lady Aurora¹, with delicacy², to lighten Amanda’s responsibility, got up and turned to the window, which was open to the summer-evening and admitted still the last rays of the long day. Hyacinth, after a moment, placed himself beside her, looking out with her at the dusky multitude of chimney-pots and the small black houses, roofed with grimy tiles. The thick, warm air of a London July floated beneath them, suffused³ with the everlasting⁴ uproar⁵ of the town, which appeared to have sunk into quietness but again became a mighty⁶ voice as soon as one listened for it; here and there, in poor windows, glimmered⁷ a turbid⁸ light, and high above, in a clearer, smokeless zone, a sky still fair and luminous⁹, a faint silver star looked down. The sky was the same that, far away in the country, bent¹⁰ over golden fields and purple hills and gardens where nightingales sang; but from this point of view everything that covered the earth was ugly and sordid¹¹, and seemed to express, or to represent, the weariness of toil¹². In an instant, to Hyacinth’s surprise, Lady Aurora said to him, “You never came, after all, to get the books.”

“Those you

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