able door, walled in
with brick and covered with ivy--was much defaced, maimed of finial and
gurgoyle, the friable limestone broken and fretted, and lending its
soft gray to a powdery dark lichen; the long windows, too, were filled
in with brick as far as the springing of the arches, the broad
clerestory windows with wire or ventilating blinds. With the low wintry
afternoon sun upon it, sending shadows from the cedar boughs, and
lighting up the touches of snow remaining on every ledge, it had still
a scarcely disturbed aspect of antique solemnity, which gave the scene
in the interior rather a startling effect; though, ecclesiastical or
reverential indignation apart, the eyes could hardly help dwelling with
pleasure on its piquant picturesqueness. Each finely-arched chapel was
turned into a stall, where in the dusty glazing of the windows there
still gleamed patches of crimson, orange, blue, and palest violet; for
the rest, the choir had been gutted, the floor leveled, paved, and
drained according to the most approved fashion, and a line of loose
boxes erected in the middle: a soft light fell from the upper windows
on sleek brown or gray flanks and haunches; on mild equine faces
looking out with active nostrils over the varnished brown boarding; on
the hay hanging from racks where the saints once looked down from the
altar-pieces, and on the pale golden straw scattered or in heaps; on a
little white-and-liver-colored spaniel making his bed on the back of an
elderly hackney, and on four ancient angels, still showing signs of
devotion like mutilated martyrs--while over all, the grand pointed
roof, untouched by reforming wash, showed its lines and colors
mysteriously through veiling shadow and cobweb, and a hoof now and then
striking against the boards seemed to fill the vault with thunder,
while outside there was the answering bay of the blood-hounds.

"Oh, this is glorious!" Gwendolen burst forth, in forgetfulness of
everything but the immediate impression: there had been a little
intoxication for her in the grand spaces of courts and building, and
the fact of her being an important person among them. "This _is_
glorious! Only I wish there were a horse in every one of the boxes. I
would ten times rather have these stables than those at Diplow."

But she had no sooner said this than some consciousness arrested her,
and involuntarily she turned her eyes toward Deronda, who oddly enough
had taken off his felt hat and stood