The great houses opposite were almost hidden from view by
the soft, fluttering flakes, and below, in the broad street, the horse-
cars moved slowly along like immense white turtles ploughing their way
through deep white sand. The sound of the bells was muffled as it came up,
and the scraping of the Irishmen's heavy spades on the pavement before the
hotel followed by the regular fall of the great shovels full on the heap,
as they stacked the snow, sounded like the digging of a gigantic grave.
Ronald felt that his spirits were depressed. He watched the drifting storm
for a few minutes, and then turned away and looked for a novel in his bag,
and filled a pipe with some English tobacco he had jealously guarded from
the lynx-eyed custom-house men in New York, and then sat down with a sigh
before his small coal fire, and prepared to pass the morning, in solitude.
But Ronald was not fond of reading, and at the end of half an hour he
threw his book and his pipe aside, and stretched his long limbs.
Pages:
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255