Here and there gleamed out a scrap of a white marble door-step, but most of the houses were approached by steps of dull stone or of painted wood.

There was a dejected and dreary air about the place.

The street was swarming with children in various stages of the soiled condition.
Elizabeth timidly knocked at the door after being assured by the interested urchins who surrounded her that Mrs.Brady really lived there, and had not moved away or anything.

It did not seem wonderful to the girl, who had lived her life thus far in a mountain shack, to find her grandmother still in the place from which she had written fifteen years before.

She did not yet know what a floating population most cities contain.
Mrs.Brady was washing when the knock sounded through the house.