man, who seemed to have crept out of some
subterranean sewer, and was stooping along the kennel, and poking the
wet rubbish with a stick, in quest of rusty nails; a merchant or two,
at the door of the post-office, together with an editor and a
miscellaneous politician, awaiting a dilatory mail; a few visages of
retired sea-captains at the window of an insurance office, looking out
vacantly at the vacant street, blaspheming at the weather, and fretting
at the dearth as well of public news as local gossip. What a
treasure-trove to these venerable quidnuncs, could they have guessed
the secret which Hepzibah and Clifford were carrying along with them!
But their two figures attracted hardly so much notice as that of a
young girl, who passed at the same instant, and happened to raise her
skirt a trifle too high above her ankles. Had it been a sunny and
cheerful day, they could hardly have gone through the streets without
making themselves obnoxious to remark. Now, probably, they were felt
to be in keeping with the dismal and bitter weather, and therefore did
not stand out in strong relief, as if the sun were shining on them, but
melted into the gray gloom and were forgotten as soon as gone.

Poor Hepzibah! Could she have understood this fact, it would have
brought her some little comfort; for, to all her other
troubles,--strange to say!--there was added the womanish and
old-maiden-like misery arising from a sense of unseemliness in her
attire. Thus, she was fain to shrink deeper into herself, as it were,
as if in the hope of making people suppose that here was only a cloak
and hood, threadbare and woefully faded, taking an airing in the midst
of the storm, without any wearer!

As they went on, the feeling of indistinctness and unreality kept dimly
hovering round about her, and so diffusing itself into her system that
one of her hands was hardly palpable to the touch of the other. Any
certainty would have been preferable to this. She whispered to
herself, again and again, "Am I awake?--Am I awake?" and sometimes
exposed her face to the chill spatter of the wind, for the sake of its
rude assurance that she was. Whether it was Clifford's purpose, or
only chance, had led them thither, they now found themselves passing
beneath the arched entrance of a large structure of gray stone.
Within, there was a spacious breadth, and an airy height from floor to
roof, now partially filled with smoke and steam, which eddied
voluminou