Lighting a candle, he led the way, Daisy following mechanically up the steep, confined staircase, to which she herself seemed to present a contrast, with her fashionable attire of costly black gauze, relieved by frillings of soft white net. "The room's not very large, Daisy," he said, entering one on the first floor, the window looking out on some back leads. "There's a larger one in front on the upper landing, but I thought you would prefer this, and it is better furnished. It was Brown's room. He said I had better take to it, for if I went up higher I might not hear the night-bell. "Yes," replied Daisy, faintly, undoing the strings of her bonnet. "Was it a--a shop we came through?" "That was the surgery. It used to be a shop, and Brown never took the trouble to alter its arrangement." "Have you always to come through it on entering the house?" "Yes. There is no other entrance. The houses in these crowded places are confined in space, you see, Daisy. I will help Sam to bring up the boxes," added Frank, disappearing. When finally left to herself, Margaret sat down and burst into a passionate flood of tears. It seemed to her that, in coming to dwell here, she must lose caste for ever. Frank called to her presently, to know whether she was not coming down. Drying her eyes as she best could, she took up the candle to descend. On the opposite side of the small landing, a door stood open to a sitting-room, and she looked in. A fair-sized room this, for it was over both the surgery and the parlour, and a very nice room too, its carpet of a rich dark hue, with chairs and window-hangings to match, and furniture that was good and handsome. She put the candle on a console, crossed to one of the windows, and gazed down at the street. Late though it was, people were surging to and fro; not at all the sort of people Daisy had been accustomed to. Over the way was a small fish-shop: a ragged man and boy, standing before it, were eating mussels. To pass one's days in such a street as this must be frightfully depressing, and Mrs. Raynor burst into tears again. "Why, my darling, what is the matter?" Frank, coming up in search of her, found her sobbing wildly, her head buried on the arm of one of the chairs. She lifted it, and let it rest upon his shoulder. "You are disappointed, Daisy. I see it." "It--it is such a wretched street, Frank; and--and such a house!" Frank flushed painfully. He felt the complaint to his heart's core. "It is only for a time, Daisy. Until I can get into something better. If that may ever be!" he added to himself, as Blase Pellet's image rose before his mind. Daisy sobbed more quietly. He was holding her to him. "I know, my poor girl, how inferior it is; altogether different from anything you have been accustomed to; but this home is better than none at all. We can at least be together and be happy here."