The house is of dark brick, and, comparing it with other London edifices,
I should take it to have been at least refronted since Johnson's time;
but within, the low, sombre coffee-room which we entered might well
enough have been of that era or earlier. It seems to be a good, plain,
respectable inn; and the waiter gave us each a plate of boiled beef, and,
for dessert, a damson tart, which made up a comfortable dinner. After
dinner, we zigzagged homeward through Clifford's link passage, Holborn,
Drury Lane, the Strand, Charing Cross, Pall Mall, and Regent Street; but
I remember only an ancient brick gateway as particularly remarkable. I
think it was the entrance to Lincoln's Inn. We reached home at about
six.
There is a woman who has several times passed through this Hanover
Street, in which we live, stopping occasionally to sing songs under the
windows; and last evening, between nine and ten o'clock, she came and
sang "Kathleen O'Moore" richly and sweetly. Her voice rose up out of the
dim, chill street, and made our hearts throb in unison with it as we sat
in our comfortable drawing-room. I never heard a voice that touched me
more deeply. Somebody told her to go away, and she stopped like a
nightingale suddenly shot; but, finding that S----- wished to know
something about her, Fanny and one of the maids ran after her, and
brought her into the hall. It seems she was educated to sing at the
opera, and married an Italian opera-singer, who is now dead; lodging in a
model lodging-house at threepence a night, and being a penny short
to-night, she tried this method, in hope of getting this penny.
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