excluded by closed lattices, and where bare paved floors, lofty
ceilings, and resounding corridors tempered the intense heat.
There, a great table in a great room was soon profusely covered
with a superb repast; and the quarantine quarters became bare
indeed, remembered among dainty dishes, southern fruits, cooled
wines, flowers from Genoa, snow from the mountain tops, and all the
colours of the rainbow flashing in the mirrors.

'But I bear those monotonous walls no ill-will now,' said Mr
Meagles. 'One always begins to forgive a place as soon as it's
left behind; I dare say a prisoner begins to relent towards his
prison, after he is let out.'

They were about thirty in company, and all talking; but necessarily
in groups. Father and Mother Meagles sat with their daughter
between them, the last three on one side of the table: on the
opposite side sat Mr Clennam; a tall French gentleman with raven
hair and beard, of a swart and terrible, not to say genteelly
diabolical aspect, but who had shown himself the mildest of men;
and a handsome young Englishwoman, travelling quite alone, who had
a proud observant face, and had either withdrawn herself from the
rest or been avoided by the rest--nobody, herself excepted perhaps,
could have quite decided which. The rest of the party were of the
usual materials: travellers on business, and travellers for
pleasure; officers from India on leave; merchants in the Greek and
Turkey trades; a clerical English husband in a meek strait-
waistcoat, on a wedding trip with his young wife; a majestic
English mama and papa, of the patrician order, with a family of
three growing-up daughters, who were keeping a journal for the
confusion of their fellow-creatures; and a deaf old English mother,