Coming out of the door, and taking a
turn round the circle of sister-dwellings, it is difficult to find your
way back by any distinguishing individuality of your own habitation. In
the centre of the Circus is a space fenced in with iron railing, a small
play-place and sylvan retreat for the children of the precinct,
permeated by brief paths through the fresh English grass, and shadowed
by various shrubbery; amid which, if you like, you may fancy yourself in
a deep seclusion, though probably the mark of eye-shot from the windows
of all the surrounding houses. But, in truth, with regard to the rest of
the town and the world at large, an abode here is a genuine seclusion;
for the ordinary stream of life does not run through this little, quiet
pool, and few or none of the inhabitants seem to be troubled with any
business or outside activities. I used to set them down as half-pay
officers, dowagers of narrow income, elderly maiden ladies, and other
people of respectability, but small account, such as hang on the world's
skirts rather than actually belong to it. The quiet of the place was
seldom disturbed, except by the grocer and butcher, who came to receive
orders, or the cabs, hackney-coaches, and Bath-chairs, in which the
ladies took an infrequent airing, or the livery-steed which the retired
captain sometimes bestrode for a morning ride, or by the red-coated
postman who went his rounds twice a day to deliver letters, and again in
the evening, ringing a hand-bell, to take letters for the mail.
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