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Mrs. Hableton did not give him time to finish, but walking to the gate, opened it with a jerk. "Use your legs and walk in," she said, and the stranger having done so, she led the way into the house, and into a small neat sitting-room, which seemed to overflow with antimacassars, wool mats, and wax flowers. There were also a row of emu eggs on the mantelpiece, a cutlass on the wall, and a grimy line of hard-looking little books, set in a stiff row on a shelf, presumably for ornament, for their appearance in no way tempted one to read them.

Fergus Hume (1886)

The Mystery of a Hansom Cab

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