Thirdly, she had a war with the landlady, partly on the subject of
their fire--which, with her Stowbury notions on the subject of coals,
seemed wretchedly mean and small--and partly on the question of table
cloths at tea, which Mrs. Jones had "never heard of," especially when
the use of plate and lines was included in the rent. And the
dinginess of the article produced at last out of an omnium-gatherum
sort of kitchen cupboard, made an ominous impression upon the country
girl, accustomed to clean, tidy, country ways--where the kitchen was
kept as neat as the parlor, and the bedrooms were not a whit behind
the sitting rooms in comfort and orderliness. Here it seemed as if,
supposing people could show a few respectable living rooms, they were
content to sleep any where, and cook any how, out of anything, in the
midst of any quantity of confusion and dirt. Elizabeth set all this
down as "London," and hated it accordingly.

She had tried to ease her mind by arranging and rearranging the
furniture--regular lodging house furniture--table, six chairs,
horse-hair sofa, a what not, and the chiffonnier, with a tea-caddy
upon it, of which the respective keys had been solemnly presented to
Miss Hilary. But still the parlor looked homeless and bare; and the
yellowish paper on the walls, the large patterned, many colored
Kidderminster on the floor, gave an involuntary sense of discomfort
and dreariness. Besides, No. 15 was on the shady side of the
street--cheap lodgings always are; and no one who has not lived in
the like lodgings--not a house--can imagine what it is to inhabit
perpetually one room where the sunshine just peeps in for an hour a
day, and vanishes by eleven A. M.; leaving behind in winter a chill
dampness, and in summer a heavy, dusty atmosphere, that weighs like
lead on the spirits in spite of one's self. No wonder that, as is