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homely welcome and soothing rest. It has a remarkebly cosy fireplace, the
very blink of which, gleaming out into the street upon the winter night,
is enough to warm all Rocherster's heart."
And Dickens goes on to describe the dinner sent in from a neighbouring
inn for the six poor travellers who arrived one Christmas Eve:-
"I never saw a finer turkey, finer beef, or greater prodigality of
tauce and gravy; and my travellers did wonderful justice to everything
set before them. It made my heart rejoice to observe how their wind
and frost hardea faces softened in the clatter of plates and knives
and forks, and mellowed in the fire and supper heat. While their hats
ans caps and wrappers, hanging up, a few small bundles on the ground
in a corner, and in another corner three or four old walking sticks
vorn down at the end to mere fringe, linked this snug interior with
the bleak outside."
And it was to the bleak outside of Fascination Fledgeby's chambers in
the Albany that old Riah came one bitterly cold, dismal day when the
fog was black outside. Here "he struck upon the door with the top of
his staff, and, having listened, sat down on the threshold. It was
characteristicof hishabitual submission, that he sat down on the raw
dark staircase After a time, when he had grown so cold as to be
fain to blow upon his fingers, he arose and knocked with his staff
again, and listened again, and again sat down to wait. Thrice he
repeated these actions before his listening ears were greeted by the
voice of Fledgevy, calling from his bed. "Hold your row.'I'll
come and open the door directly,1 But, in lieu of coming directly, he
fell into a sweet sleep for some quarter of an hour more, during
which added interval Riah sat upon the staircase and waited with
perfect patience. At length the door stood open, and Mr Fledgeby's
retreating drapery plunged into bed again. Following it at a respectful
distance, Riah passed into the bed-chamber, where a fire had been seme
time lighted, and was burning briskly.
"Why, what time of night c: you mean to call it inquired Fledgeby,
turning away beneath the clothes, and presenting a comfortable rampart
of shoulder to the chilled figure of the old man.
Sir, it is full half-past ten in the morning."
"The deuce it is I Then it must be precious foggy
"Very foggy, sir."
