Page:Vanity Fair 1848.djvu/637

 CHAPTER LXI.

IN WHICH TWO LIGHTS ARE PUT OUT.

HERE came a day when the round of decorous pleasures and solemn in Mr. Jos Sedley's family indulged, was interrupted by an event which happens inmost houses. As you ascend the stair-case of your house from the drawing towards the bed-room floors, you may have remarked a little arch in the wall right before you, which at once gives light to the stair which leads from the second story to the third (where the nursery and servants' chambers commonly are) and serves for another purpose of utility, of which the undertaker's men can give you a notion. They rest the coffins upon that arch, or pass them through it so as not to disturb in any unseemly manner the cold tenant slumbering within the black arch.

That second-floor arch in a London house, looking up and down the well of the staircase, and commanding the main thoroughfare by which the inhabitants are passing; by which cook lurks down before daylight to scour her pots and pans in the kitchen; by which young master stealthily