So she led the way down the corridor and through the
living-part of the house, and we passed several rooms, and one little
parlour lined with shelves and musty books. The blinds were pulled, but
let enough light in to show a high-backed horsehair chair that stood at
the table. In front of it lay an open volume, and a pair of horn-rimmed
spectacles, that I had often seen on Maskew's nose; so I knew it was his
study, and that nothing had been moved since last he sat there. Even now
I trembled to think in whose house I was, and half-expected the old
attorney to step in and hale me off to jail; till I remembered how all my
trouble had come about, and how I last had seen him with his face turned
up against the morning sun.
Thus we came to the garden, where I had never been before. It was a great
square, shut in with a brick wall of twelve or fifteen feet, big enough
to suit a palace, but then ill kept and sorely overgrown. I could spend
long in speaking of that plot; how the flowers, and fruit-trees,
pot-herbs, spice, and simples ran all wild and intermixed. The pink brick
walls caught every ray of sun that fell, and that morning there was a
hushed, close heat in it, and a warm breath rose from the strawberry
beds, for they were then in full bearing. I was glad enough to get out of
the sun when Grace led the way into a walk of medlar-trees and quinces,
where the boughs interlaced and formed an alley to a brick summer-house.
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