Her plumes¹ and brilliants, climbs the marble stairs

  With head aloft, nor ever turns her eyes

  On lackeys² who attend her; now she dwells

  Grim-clad, up darksome alleys³, breathes hot gin,

  And screams in pauper⁴ riot.

 

                             But to these

  She came a frugal⁵ matron, neat and deft⁶,

  With cheerful morning thoughts and quick device

  To find the much in little.

Mrs. Meyrick’s house was not noisy: the front parlor⁷ looked on the river, and the back on gardens, so that though she was reading aloud to her daughters, the window could be left open to freshen the air of the small double room where a lamp and two candles were burning. The candles were on a table apart for Kate, who was drawing illustrations for a publisher; the lamp was not only for the reader but for Amy and Mab, who were embroidering⁸ satin cushions for “the great world.”

 

Outside, the house looked very narrow and shabby, the bright light through the holland blind showing the heavy old-fashioned window-frame; but it is pleasant to know that many such grim-walled slices of space in our foggy London have been and still are the homes of a culture the more spotlessly free from vulgarity, because poverty has rendered everything like display an impersonal⁹ question, and all the grand shows of the world simply a spectacle which rouses petty

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