undesirable place in which to live, unless one wished to be broken
daily on the rack of social progress.

This front room was Mrs. Grubb's only parlour. The seven benches
were rather in the way and seemingly unnecessary, as the lady
attended meetings morning, noon, and night in halls hired for that
purpose; but they gave her a feeling of security, as, in case one of
her less flourishing societies should be ejected from its hall, or in
case she should wake up in the middle of the night and want to hold a
meeting of any club when all the halls were closed, the benches in
the parlour would make it possible without a moment's loss of time.

The room connecting with this was the family banquet-hall and kitchen
in one, and as Mrs. Grubb's opinions on diet were extremely advanced,
it amply served the purpose.

There were three bedrooms upstairs, and the whole establishment was
rather untidy in its aspect; but, though it might have been much
cleaner, it is only fair to say that it might also have been much
dirtier.

The house was deserted. The only sound came from the back yard, and
it was the echo of children's voices. It was not at all a merry
prattle; it was a steady uproar interrupted by occasional shrieks and
yells, a clatter of falling blocks, beatings of a tin pan, a scramble
of feet, a tussle, with confusion of blows and thumps, and then
generally a temporary lull in the proceedings, evidently brought
about by some sort of outside interference. If you had pushed open
the wire door, you would have seen two children of four or five years
disporting themselves in a sand-heap. One was a boy and one a girl;