Pierre's arm, Isabel eagerly and forebodingly demands what is the cause of this most strange and unpleasant transition.
'The pavements, Isabel; this is the town.'
Isabel was silent.
But, the first time for many weeks, Delly voluntarily spoke:
'It feels not so soft as the green sward, Master Pierre.'
'No, Miss Ulver,' said Pierre, very bitterly, 'the buried hearts of some dead citizens have perhaps come to the surface.'
'Sir?' said Delly.
'And are they so hard-hearted here?' asked Isabel.
'Ask yonder pavements, Isabel. Milk dropped from the milkman's can in December, freezes not more quickly on those stones, than does snow-white innocence, if in poverty it chance to fall in these streets.'
'Then God help my hard fate, Master Pierre,' sobbed Delly. 'Why didst thou drag hither a poor outcast like me?'
'Forgive me, Miss Ulver,' exclaimed Pierre, with sudden warmth, and yet most marked respect; 'forgive me; never yet have I entered the city by night, but, somehow, it made me feel both bitter and sad. Come, be cheerful, we shall soon be comfortably housed, and have our comfort all to ourselves; the old clerk I spoke to you about, is now doubtless ruefully eyeing his hat on the peg. Come, cheer up, Isabel;—'tis a long ride, but here we are, at last. Come! 'Tis not very far now to our welcome.'
'I hear a strange shuffling and clattering,' said Delly, with a shudder.
'It does not seem so light as just now,' said Isabel.
'Yes,' returned Pierre, 'it is the shop-shutters being
