"You see, my dear little Mollie, you'll get any amount of pity, but
nothing else. Old Sally will be very sincerely sorry for you, but she
won't help you to escape. On the contrary, she'll keep you under lock
and key as faithfully as though you were the Koh-i-noor. Come in, you
may take cold in this nasty, draughty passage."
He drew her with him. Mollie seemed in a sort of dreamy swoon, and went
passively. They ascended the stairs into another dark and draughty hall,
flanked on either side by a couple of doors. One of these the old dame
opened, and quite a new picture burst on Mollie's sight.
The apartment was not at all like the mysterious padded room of former
experience; the four bare walls were plastered and blankly bare; the
boarded floor was strewn with rags; the two big square windows were
draped with paper-blinds. A huge fire of logs, such as Mollie had never
beheld in her life before, roared gloriously in the old-fashioned
fire-place, and lighted the room with a lurid glow. A four-post
bedstead, the bed covered with a gaudy patch-work or counterpane, stood
in one corner, a table with a white cloth stood in another, a chest of
drawers in a third, and the door by which they entered in the fourth.
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