The principal door was entered by a staircase of marble.

I had never seen the stone of Carrara, and wildly supposed this to have been dug from Italian quarries.

The beauty of the poplars, the coolness exhaled from the dew-besprent bricks, the commodiousness of the seat which these steps afforded, and the uncertainty into which I was plunged respecting my future conduct, all combined to make me pause.

I sat down on the lower step and began to meditate.
By some transition it occurred to me that the supply of my most urgent wants might be found in some inhabitant of this house.

I needed at present a few cents; and what were a few cents to the tenant of a mansion like this?
I had an invincible aversion to the calling of a beggar, but I regarded with still more antipathy the vocation of a thief; to this alternative, however, I was now reduced.