She loved it, and did it conscientiously.
She would not let it go out of her hands disgraced with blunders.

Her thoughts were like children to her, not to be sent out into the world ragged and uncouth, exposed to just ridicule and to shame.
Felicita and Madame set out on their search after a liberal publisher on a gloomy day in January.

For the first time in her life Felicita found herself in an omnibus, with her feet buried in damp straw, and strange fellow-passengers crushing against her.

In no part of London do the omnibuses bear comparison with the well-appointed carriages rich people are accustomed to; and this one, besides other discomforts, was crowded till there was barely room to move hand or foot.
"It is very cheap," said Madame cheerfully after she had paid the fare when they were set down in Trafalgar Square "and not so very inconvenient." A fog filled the air and shrouded all the surrounding buildings in dull obscurity; while the fountains, rising and falling with an odd and ghostly movement as of gigantic living creatures, were seen dimly white in the midst of the gray gloom.

The ceaseless stream of hurrying passers-by lost itself in darkness only a few paces from them.