She carried with her the rapid vision of a fair little creature with violet-coloured eyes under a head-covering of an old silk handkerchief.

The face was oval, the neck long and slender as a lily, and the shoulders drooping; but she was blue from cold, her little hands and feet were half dead, and the only thing about her that still showed life was the slight vapour of her breath.
The child remained with her eyes upturned, looking at the house mechanically.

It was a narrow one, two stories in height, very old, and evidently built towards the end of the fifteenth century.

It was almost sealed to the side of the Cathedral, between two buttresses, like a wart which had pushed itself between the two toes of a Colossus.

And thus supported on each side, it was admirably preserved, with its stone basement, its second story in wooden panels, ornamented with bricks, its roof, of which the framework advanced at least three feet beyond the gable, its turret for the projecting stairway at the left corner, where could still be seen in the little window the leaden setting of long ago.
At times repairs had been made on account of its age.