The smell of the sewer was the chief odor, and the long lines of low, red brick houses, with wooden steps and balustrades, and the blinds closed, completed a permanent camp of dreariness.
"Does Fanny Newt live there ?" asked Gabriel, in a tone which indicated that there might be hearts in which honey was not abundantly hived.
"Yes," said May, gravely.

"You know they have very little to live upon, and--and--oh dear, I don't like to speak of it, Gabriel, but they are very miserable." Gabriel said nothing, but rang the bell.
The sloppy servant having stared wildly for a moment at the apparition of blooming love that had so incomprehensibly alighted upon the steps, ducked under them, and in a moment reappeared at the door.

She seemed to recognize May, and said "Yes'm" before any question had been asked.
Gabriel and May walked into the little parlor.

It was dark and formal.
There was a black haircloth sofa with wooden edges all over it, so that nobody could lean or lounge, or do any thing but sit uncomfortably upright.

There were black haircloth chairs, a table with two or three books; two lamps with glass drops upon the mantle; a thin cheap carpet; gloom, silence, and a complicated smell of grease--as if the ghosts of all the wretched dinners that had ever been cooked in the house haunted it spitefully.
While May went up stairs to find Fanny, Gabriel Bennet looked and smelled around him.