made the surrounding dirt cruelly palpable. The muslin curtains in the
parlour windows of No. 15 would not have appeared of such a smoky yellow
if the curtains of No. 14 had not been of such a pharisaical whiteness.
Mrs. Magson, at No. 13, was a humble letter of lodgings, always more or
less in arrear with the demands of quarter-day; and it seemed a hard
thing that her door-steps, whereon were expended much labour and
hearthstone--not to mention house-flannel, which was in itself no
unimportant item in the annual expenses--should be always thrown in the
shade by the surpassing purity of the steps before No. 14.

Not satisfied with being the very pink and pattern of respectability,
the objectionable house even aspired to a kind of prettiness. It was as
bright, and pleasant, and rural of aspect as any house within earshot
of the roar and rattle of Holborn can be. There were flowers in the
windows; gaudy scarlet geraniums, which seemed to enjoy an immunity
from all the ills to which geraniums are subject, so impossible was it
to discover a faded leaf amongst their greenness, or the presence of
blight amidst their wealth of blossom. There were birdcages within the
shadow of the muslin curtains, and the colouring of the newly-pointed
brickwork was agreeably relieved by the vivid green of Venetian blinds.
The freshly-varnished street-door bore a brass-plate, on which to look
was to be dazzled; and the effect produced by this combination of white
door-step, scarlet geranium, green blind, and brass-plate was
obtrusively brilliant.

Those who had been so privileged as to behold the interior of the house
in Fitzgeorge-street brought away with them a sense of admiration that
was the next thing to envy. The pink and pattern of propriety within,
as it was the pink and pattern of propriety without, it excited in
every breast alike a wondering awe, as of a habitation tenanted by some