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Gissing, George, 1857-1903

"The Nether World"


And before many days she had found it. Happily there were no
luxuries to be laid aside; her ordinary dress was not too good for
the workroom. She had no habits of idleness to overcome, and an hour
at the table made her as expert with her fingers as ever.
Returning from the first day's work, she sat in her room--the
little room which used to be hers--to rest and think for a moment
before going down to Bessie's supper-table. And her thought was:
'He, too, is just coming home from work. Why should my life be
easier than his?'


CHAPTER XXXIX
SIDNEY


Look at a map of greater London, a map on which the town proper
shows as a dark, irregularly rounded patch against the whiteness of
suburban districts, and just on the northern limit of the vast
network of streets you will distinguish the name of Crouch End.
Another decade, and the dark patch will have spread greatly further;
for the present, Crouch End is still able to remind one that it was
in the country a very short time ago. The streets have a smell of
newness, of dampness; the bricks retain their complexion, the stucco
has not rotted more than one expects in a year or two; poverty tries
to hide itself with venetian blinds, until the time when an advanced
guard of houses shall justify the existence of the slum.


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