But it was the best she could do.

Moreover, she had an end house in one of the top blocks, and thus had only one neighbour; on the other side an extra strip of garden.

And, having an end house, she enjoyed a kind of aristocracy among the other women of the "between" houses, because her rent was five shillings and sixpence instead of five shillings a week.

But this superiority in station was not much consolation to Mrs.Morel.
She was thirty-one years old, and had been married eight years.

A rather small woman, of delicate mould but resolute bearing, she shrank a little from the first contact with the Bottoms women.