The room which was assigned to us was a back-room, small, and commonly but cleanly furnished. Immediately beneath the window was the water-butt, and beyond it were numbers of small back-yards--so many, indeed, that I wondered where the houses could be that belonged to them. The general prospect from this window, as I very soon learned, was composed of sheets, shirts, stockings, and the usual articles of male and female attire in the process of drying: of some other things also--of washing-tubs, and women and little girls wringing and washing and up to their arm-pits in soap-suds. Occasionally I saw men also thus engaged. A variation in the prospect was sometimes afforded by small children being brought into the yards to be slapped and then set upon the stones to cool, and by other small children blowing soap-bubbles out of father's pipes. The peculiarity of the scene was that the clothes never appeared to be dried. They were eternally hanging on the lines, which intersected each other like a Chinese puzzle, or were being skewered to them in a damp condition. I can safely assert that existence, as seen from our bedroom window, was one interminable washing-day. When we went downstairs uncle Bryan was in the shop, weighing up his wares and attending to occasional customers. Attached to the shop were a parlour, in which the meals were taken and which served as a general sitting-room, and a smaller apartment in the rear. My mother called me into the smaller room. Do you see, Chris?' she said, pointing to some flowers on the window-sill. There were two or three pots also, in which seeds had evidently been newly planted. In my mother's eyes, these were a strong proof of my uncle's goodness. A rickety flight of steps led to the basement of the house, in which there was a gloomy kitchen (very blackbeetle-y), which could not have been used for a considerable time. The cobwebs were thick in the corners, and a prosperous spider, a very alderman in its proportions, peeped out of its stronghold, with an air of 'What is all this about?' The appearance of a woman in that deserted retreat did not please my gentleman; it was a sign of progress. In the basement were also two or three other gloomy recesses. Our brief inspection ended, we ascended to the parlour. The fire was burning brightly, and the kettle was on the hob. My mother went to the door which led to the shop. 'At what time do you generally have tea, Bryan?' she inquired. 'At half-past five,' he replied.