Publisher's Synopsis
The yard was all silent and empty under the burning afternoon heat, which hadmade its asphalt springy like turf, when suddenly the children threw themselves outof the great doors at either end of the Sunday-school-boys from the right, girlsfrom the left-in two howling, impetuous streams, that widened, eddied, intermingled and formed backwaters until the whole quadrangle was full ofclamour and movement. Many of the scholars carried prize-books bound in vividtints, and proudly exhibited these volumes to their companions and to the teachers, who, tall, languid, and condescending, soon began to appear amid the restlessthrong. Near the left-hand door a little girl of twelve years, dressed in a creamcoloured frock, with a wide and heavy straw hat, stood quietly kicking her foal-likelegs against the wall. She was one of those who had won a prize, and once or twiceshe took the treasure from under her arm to glance at its frontispiece with a vaguesmile of satisfaction. For a time her bright eyes were fixed expectantly on thedoorway; then they would wander, and she started to count the windows of thevarious Connexional buildings which on three sides enclosed the yard-chapel, school, lecture-hall, and chapel-keeper's house. Most of the children had alreadysqueezed through the narrow iron gate into the street beyond, where a steam-carwas rumbling and clattering up Duck Bank, attended by its immense shadow. Theteachers remained a little behi
