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David Lloyd's last will. By Hesba Stretton
David Lloyd's last will By Hesba Stretton Author:Sarah Smith Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. MR. CHRISTOPHER LLOYD'S DIFFICULTIES. Mark Fletcher and Barry Lloyd left the Sunday-school, and turned their steps towards one of the pleasant... more »est suburbs of Manchester. The squalid back streets, with the pinched and sallow faces of the operative class who inhabited them, were soon lying behind them in the grey fog which overhung the city; and the road they followed was thronged by pedestrians of another rank, well dressed and well fed, whom the swelling tide of famine had not as yet reached, or had reached only through their generous sympathy. Barry, if she had not forgotten her tears, had wisely conquered them as useless things, and now walked by the side of Mark Fletcher, talking almost gaily. After half an hour's brisk walking, they reached a terrace of handsome houses, standing at the back of a fair-sized piece of ground laid out as gardens, and all built alike, according to the prevailing rule of street architecture, so as to be only distinguishable from one another by the numbers upon the doors, or by the pattern of the elegant curtains which were drawn carefully over each bay-window. In no town in the kingdom is there more house-pride than in Manchester, manifested in the humblest cottage of the operative, which is crowded with unused furniture, as much as in the sumptuous mansion of the merchant prince. The standing and position of a citizen almost depend upon the rent he pays. Lloyd Terrace, a row of a dozen good residences renting at £60 a year, was a good example of the general rule. There was a certain air of ease, approaching to affluence, pervading the exterior of each of them, and showing through the large plate-glass windows of their drawing-rooms. No one dwelling in such a house could lie under the suspicion of poverty. When the hall-door ...« less