I did not speak, but waited for her to turn, with that ship's call
still sounding in my mind. The rain had cleared for a winter sunset.
Opposite, in the house which had been turned into a frugal shop, it was
thought so near to night that they lit their lamp, though it was not
only possible to see the bottles of sweet-stuff and the bundles of wood
in the window, but to make out the large print of a bill stuck to a
pane announcing a concert at the Wesleyan Mission Room. The lamp was
alight also in the little beer-house next door to it, where the
_Shipping Gazette_ could be borrowed, if it were not already out on
loan; for children constantly go there for it, with a request from
mother, learning their geography that way in Malabar Street, while
following a father or a brother round the world and back again, and
working out by dead-reckoning whether he would be home for Christmas.

The quiet street, with every house alike, had that air of conscious
reserve which is given by the respectable and monotonous; but for a
moment then it was bright with the glory of the sky's afterglow
reflected on its wet pavements, as though briefly exalted with an
unexpected revelation. The radiance died. Night came, and it was as
if the twilight native to the street clouded from its walls and brimmed
it with gloom, while yet the sky was bright. The lamplighter set his
beacon at the end of the street.

That key had been found. Mrs. Williams laughed to herself, and then
saw me. "Oh," she exclaimed. "I didn't know you were there. Did you
see that? That lamplighter! When Williams was at sea, and I was
alone, it was quite hopeful when the lamplighter did that. It looked
like a star. And that Number Ten is let at last. Did you see the
young people there? I'm sure they're newly married. He's a sailor."