The Old House in the City Or Not Forsaken

IT was an old old house, situated somewhere near the central parts of London. The street was narrow and gloomy, branching off at right angles from a frequented thoroughfare, and the lofty uppermost stories, rising tier above tier, and closing in overhead, left but a narrow strip of heaven's blue visible to those below, even on the brightest and sunniest of days. It was neither bright nor sunny now, for twilight shrouded the giant city, and already its myriad lights twinkled through the gloom, in preparation for the coming hours of darkness. Dull indeed was this confined alley, with its old-fashioned buildings on either side, in the midst of which, on the right hand, at the farthest corner, stood the aged house already mentioned.

It had not always been so old. Once, in long past days, it had been a stately mansion of no small pretensions, forming the home of some wealthy city merchant, or, a little farther back, it may be, even of a nobleman himself. But that was over now. Noblemen and city merchants had alike been swept away in the hurrying tide westward, and the old mansion had sunk many grades in the scale of society.

A great change had taken place since those far-off days, one or two hundred years before! No delicately-nurtured ladies now, in silk and velvet, in paint and patches, went daintily up and down its broad oaken staircase. No gaily-attired young gallants, with tossing plumes and clinking swords, passed to and fro through its outer door. That massive portal was never closed now, for the old house was no longer a home, but only a mass of tightly-packed dwellings. No heavy coaches, drawn by fashionable Flemish mares, lumbered in stately grandeur through the narrow street. Far back in a distant horizon lay such dignities.

Ladies and gallants, velvets and plumes, Flemish mares and gorgeous splendour—who could dream of such terms in connection with this squalid neighbourhood? Who could look on those dirt-begrimed ceilings, and imagine brilliant candelabra suspended from their centres? Who could view the discoloured walls, and realize that they were once crowded with works of art? Who could glance at the bare unwashed rooms, and listen without an incredulous smile to the tale of velvet furniture and priceless decorations, which once graced those very apartments?

Gone for ever were those days of wealth and luxury. The old mansion had sunk into a mere tenement-house, crowded with carpenters, shoemakers, tailors, and porters, too often in the lowest depths of wretchedness.

It was a close summer's evening, and heavy oppression pervaded the atmosphere, though the sun had sunk below the horizon, and the last gleams of red light, finding their way through the dull mist overhead, had faded at length from the tallest chimney-tops. But no sweet breath of country freshness could penetrate so far through the city. No cooling breeze ever crept between the massive walls of the houses forming Ansty Court.