The building--if such a term be applicable to so miserable a composition of sticks, stones, and mud--had but two apartments; one below, which was entered by three descending steps; and another above, which was accessible by means of nine or ten steep, black, broken, creaking, and tottering stairs. The door was not fastened, and it yielded to a gentle pressure of the hand; it seemed indeed not capable of being fastened; the three worm-eaten planks of which it was composed were far apart, and the long rusty hinges were almost unequal to the duty of supporting its weight. The young ladies cautiously and quietly, one by one, entered the lower apartment, and they simultaneously shuddered at the sight of such destitution and wretchedness as appeared in the miserable hovel. They had been walking in the broad sunshine, and their eyes so felt the sudden transition from light to darkness, that they could not at first discern whether or not there was any one in the room. There was indeed a window, but its absent glass was so supplied by patches of dingy paper and stuffings of old dirty fragments of woollen wearing apparel, and the deep black thatch, of which the roof was composed, projected so far over the aperture of the window, which was also near the ground, that little light could reach it and less could pass through it. When the eye was so far reconciled to the degree of light which was within the cottage as to be able to see the extent and contents of the room, the young ladies thought they were in an unoccupied apartment. For they could see very little that bore any resemblance to furniture. There was neither chair, nor table, nor bedstead. There was a large fire-place, having no grate, but two thin little bars of iron which contained the ashes of some recently expired fire, and there stood by the fire-place an earthen pipkin, black and empty. In one corner of the room, the most remote from the window and the door, was a heap of straw, very dirty and partly covered with an old rug of no shape or colour. And when they lifted up their eyes in astonishment, they perceived that the room had no ceiling, and the boards which served as the floor of the upper room were widely apart, letting in light through the crevices. And they heard the sound of a feeble voice and the faint moanings of sickness. And as they were hesitating whether they should venture to ascend to the room above, they heard a footstep quickly moving, and presently from the top of the stairs they heard one calling out, “Who’s there?”