Page:Headlong Hall - Peacock (1816).djvu/112

 of the iron-work—robbed at that hour of their natural rest, as of air and exercise by day-observe their pale and ghastly features, more ghastly in that baleful and malignant light, and tell me if you do not fancy yourself on the threshold of Virgil's hell, where

As Mr. Escot said this, a little rosy-cheeked girl, with a basket of heath on her head, came tripping down the side of one of the rocks on the left. The force of contrast struck even on the phlegmatic spirit of Mr. Jenkison, and he almost inclined for a moment to the doctrine of deterioration. Mr. Escot continued:

Nor is the lot of the parents more enviable.