Forget-me-nots on a brown field ornamented the walls of the kitchen.  Its ceiling was irregular and grimy, and a beam ran across it; in this beam were two hooks; from these hooks had once depended the ropes of a swing, much used by Constance and Sophia in the old days before they were grown up.  A large range stood out from the wall between the stairs and the window.  The rest of the furniture comprised a table—­against the wall opposite the range—­ a cupboard, and two Windsor chairs.  Opposite the foot of the steps was a doorway, without a door, leading to two larders, dimmer even than the kitchen, vague retreats made visible by whitewash, where bowls of milk, dishes of cold bones, and remainders of fruit-pies, reposed on stillages; in the corner nearest the kitchen was a great steen in which the bread was kept.  Another doorway on the other side of the kitchen led to the first coal-cellar, where was also the slopstone and tap, and thence a tunnel took you to the second coal-cellar, where coke and ashes were stored; the tunnel proceeded to a distant, infinitesimal yard, and from the yard, by ways behind Mr. Critchlow’s shop, you could finally emerge, astonished, upon Brougham Street.  The sense of the vast-obscure of those regions which began at the top of the kitchen steps and ended in black corners of larders or abruptly in the common dailiness of Brougham Street, a sense which Constance and Sophia had acquired in infancy, remained with them almost unimpaired as they grew old.

Mrs. Baines wore black alpaca, shielded by a white apron whose string drew attention to the amplitude of her waist.  Her sleeves were turned up, and her hands, as far as the knuckles, covered with damp flour.  Her ageless smooth paste-board occupied a corner of the table, and near it were her paste-roller, butter, some pie-dishes, shredded apples, sugar, and other things.  Those rosy hands were at work among a sticky substance in a large white bowl.

“Mother, are you there?” she heard a voice from above.

“Yes, my chuck.”

Footsteps apparently reluctant and hesitating clinked on the stairs, and Sophia entered the kitchen.

“Put this curl straight,” said Mrs. Baines, lowering her head slightly and holding up her floured hands, which might not touch anything but flour.  “Thank you.  It bothered me.  And now stand out of my light.  I’m in a hurry.  I must get into the shop so that I can send Mr. Povey off to the dentist’s.  What is Constance doing?”

“Helping Maggie to make Mr. Povey’s bed.”

“Oh!”

Though fat, Mrs. Baines was a comely woman, with fine brown hair, and confidently calm eyes that indicated her belief in her own capacity to accomplish whatever she could be called on to accomplish.  She looked neither more nor less than her age, which was forty-five.  She was not a native of the district, having been culled by her husband from the moorland town of Axe, twelve miles off.  Like nearly all women who settle