Question about a sentence from the novel "Possession"
The long velvet train of a dress 'sweeps across' the floor, trailing behind the novelist George Eliot, and Roland imagines she is still a visitor and researcher in the Library. Perhaps writing 'Mill on the Floss.'
George Eliot is compressed because she is only glimpsed between the heavy Patristics books on the shelves.
'Ring' as you guess describes the sound of (leather) shoes on the cast-iron galleries and stairs.
