From the prison
there came at this instant the loud clang of a bell, and succeeding this
a prolonged and resonant murmur which seemed to increase. Miss Eunice
looked hastily around her. There were several people who must have heard
the same sounds that reached her ears, but they were not alarmed. In
fact, one or two of them seemed to be going to the prison direct. The
courage of our philanthropist began to revive. A woman in a brick house
opposite suddenly pulled up a window-curtain and fixed an amused and
inquisitive look upon her.
This would have sent her into a thrice-heated furnace. "Come, if you
please," she commanded the man, and she marched upon the jail.
She entered at first a series of neat offices in a wing of the
structure, and then she came to a small door made of black bars of iron.
A man stood on the farther side of this, with a bunch of large keys.
When he saw Miss Eunice he unlocked and opened the door, and she passed
through.
She found that she had entered a vast, cool, and lofty cage, one hundred
feet in diameter; it had an iron floor, and there were several people
strolling about here and there. Through several grated apertures the
sunlight streamed with strong effect, and a soft breeze swept around the
cavernous apartment.
Without the cage, before her and on either hand, were three more wings
of the building, and in these were the prisoners' corridors.
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