Page:Tales of Three Cities (Boston, James R. Osgood & Co., 1884).djvu/322

310 and gone, and the air, after this temporary relaxation, had renewed its keenness. The snow, which had fallen in but moderate abundance, was heaped along the side of the pavement; it formed a radiant cornice on the housetops, and crowned the windows with a plain white cap. It deepened the color of everything else, made all surfaces look ruddy, and at a distance sent into the air a thin, delicate mist,—a tinted exhalation,—which occasionally softened an edge. The upper part of Beacon Street seemed to Florimond charming,—the long, wide, sunny slope, the uneven line of the older houses, the contrasted, differing, bulging fronts, the painted bricks, the tidy facings, the immaculate doors, the burnished silver plates, the denuded twigs of the far extent of the Common, on the other side; and to crown the eminence and complete the picture, high in the air, poised in the right place, over everything that clustered below, the most felicitous object in Boston,—the gilded dome of the State House. It was in the shadow of this monument, as we know, that Miss Daintry lived; and Florimond, who was always lucky, had the good fortune to find her at home.

 V.

may seem that I have assumed on the part of the reader too great a curiosity about the impressions of this young man, who was not very remarkable, and who has not even the recommendation of being