”

So imperfect was this realisation of the first of my great expectations, that I looked in dismay at Mr. Wemmick. “Ah!” said he, mistaking me; “the retirement reminds you of the country. So it does me.”

He led me into a corner and conducted me up a flight of stairs,—which appeared to me to be slowly collapsing into sawdust, so that one of those days the upper lodgers would look out at their doors and find themselves without the means of coming down,—to a set of chambers on the top floor.