It was spacious,
and I dare say had once been handsome, but every discernible thing
in it was covered with dust and mould, and dropping to pieces. The
most prominent object was a long table with a tablecloth spread on
it, as if a feast had been in preparation when the house and the
clocks all stopped together. An epergne or centre-piece of some kind
was in the middle of this cloth; it was so heavily overhung with
cobwebs that its form was quite undistinguishable; and, as I looked
along the yellow expanse out of which I remember its seeming to
grow, like a black fungus, I saw speckle-legged spiders with
blotchy bodies running home to it, and running out from it, as if
some circumstances of the greatest public importance had just
transpired in the spider community.
I heard the mice too, rattling behind the panels, as if the same
occurrence were important to their interests. But the black beetles
took no notice of the agitation, and groped about the hearth in a
ponderous elderly way, as if they were short-sighted and hard of
hearing, and not on terms with one another.
These crawling things had fascinated my attention, and I was
watching them from a distance, when Miss Havisham laid a hand upon
my shoulder. In her other hand she had a crutch-headed stick on
which she leaned, and she looked like the Witch of the place.
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