And when the
tea-service had been removed, and Tom, sitting down at the piano, became
absorbed in some of his old organ tunes, he was still beside her at the
open window, looking out upon the twilight.
There is little enough to see in Furnival's Inn. It is a shady, quiet
place, echoing to the footsteps of the stragglers who have business
there; and rather monotonous and gloomy on summer evenings. What gave it
such a charm to them, that they remained at the window as unconscious of
the flight of time as Tom himself, the dreamer, while the melodies which
had so often soothed his spirit were hovering again about him! What
power infused into the fading light, the gathering darkness; the stars
that here and there appeared; the evening air, the City's hum and stir,
the very chiming of the old church clocks; such exquisite enthrallment,
that the divinest regions of the earth spread out before their eyes
could not have held them captive in a stronger chain?
The shadows deepened, deepened, and the room became quite dark. Still
Tom's fingers wandered over the keys of the piano, and still the window
had its pair of tenants.
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