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Hide-and-seek; Or, The Mystery of Mary Grice
Hide-and-seek Or The Mystery of Mary Grice Author:Wilkie Collins Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: HIDE-AND-SEEK, OPENING CHAPTER: A Child's Sunday."- -'','. At a quarter to one o'clock, on a wet SflEiJsty afternoon, in November, 1837, Samuel Snoxell,... more » page to" Mi-. Zachary Thorpe, of Baregrove Square, London, left the area gte with three umbrellas under his arm, to meet his maste'r-anl Distress at the church door, on the conclusion of morning service. Snoxell had been specially directed by the house-maid to distribute his three umbrellas in the following manner: the new silk umbrella was to be given to Mr. and Mrs. Thorpe; the old silk umbrella was to be handed to Mr. Good worth, Mrs. Thorpe's father; and the heavy gingham was to be kept by Snoxell himself, for the special protection of " Master Zack," aged six years, and the only child of Mr. Thorpe. Furnished with these instructions, the page set forth on his way to the church. The morning had been fine for November; but before midday the clouds had gathered, the rain had begun, and the inveterate fog of the season had closed dingily over the wet streets, far and near. The garden in the middle of Baregrove Square—with its close-cut turf, its vacant beds, its brand-new rustic seats, its withered young trees that had not yet grown as high as the railings around them—seemed to be absolutely rotting away in yellow mist and softly- steady rain, and was deserted even by the cats. All blinds were drawn down for the most part over all windows; what light came from the sky came like light seen through dusty glass; the grim brown hue of the brick houses looked more dirtily mournful than ever; the smoke from the chimneypots was lost mysteriously in deepening superincumbentfog; the muddy gutters gurgled;-the heavy rain-drops dripped into empty areas audibly.: ; Jo object great or small, no out-of-door litter whatevei'-Appeare...« less