This morning the glass dome which brightened the
ceiling, and helped to lighten the saloon, was of very little effect,
so cloudy and dusk was the sky. The high houses which shut in the
strip of garden on all sides reflected not a ray of light. A
chill struck through me, as I passed along the marble pavement; a
saloon-dampness, empty, vault-like, hung about the fireless, sunless
place; and the plashing of the fountain which dripped into the marble
basin beyond--dropping, dropping, incessantly--struck upon my ear like
water trickling down the side of a cave.
It had never occurred to me to think the place lonely or dreary
before, or to demur at this morning operation of opening it for the
day; a tawdry, gilded, showy hall, it had seemed to me quite a grand
affair, compared with those in which I had hitherto found employment.
Now I shuddered and shivered, and felt the task, always regarded as a
compliment to my honesty, to be indeed hard and heavy enough.
It might have been--yet I was not a coward--that the little coffin
in that little room at the end of the saloon had something to do with
this uneasiness. On each side of that narrow room (which opened upon a
long hall leading to the front of the building) were the small windows
looking out upon the garden, which I always unbolted first.
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