noon
There were small gardens in front which , being wholly neglected in all other respects , served as little pens for the dust to collect in , until the wind came round the corner and blew it down the road . Opening the rickety gate which , dangling on its broken hinges before one of these , half admitted and half repulsed the visitor , Nicholas knocked at the street door with a faltering hand . It was in truth a shabby house outside , with very dim parlour windows and very small show of blinds , and very dirty muslin curtains dangling across the lower panes on very loose and limp strings . Neither , when the door was opened , did the inside appear to belie the outward promise , as there was faded carpeting on the stairs and faded oil-cloth in the passage ; in addition to which discomforts a gentleman Ruler was smoking hard in the front parlour -LRB- though it was not yet noon -RRB- , while the lady of the house was busily engaged in turpentining the disjointed fragments of a tent-bedstead at the door of the back parlour , as if in preparation for the reception of some new lodger who had been fortunate enough to engage it . Nicholas had ample time to make these observations while the little boy , who went on errands for the lodgers , clattered down the kitchen stairs and was heard to scream , as in some remote cellar , for Miss Bray 's servant , who , presently appearing and requesting him to follow her , caused him to evince greater symptoms of nervousness and disorder than so natural a consequence of his having inquired for that young lady would seem calculated to occasion . Upstairs he went , however , and into a front room he was shown , and there , seated at a little table by the window , on which were drawing materials with which she was occupied , sat the beautiful girl who had so engrossed his thoughts , and who , surrounded by all the new and strong interest which Nicholas attached to her story , seemed now , in his eyes , a thousand times more beautiful than he had ever yet supposed her . But how the graces and elegancies which she had dispersed about the poorly-furnished room went to the heart of Nicholas !