midday
Without Gabriella , her mother was fond of saying , it would have been impossible to keep a roof over their heads . Twelve years before , when they had moved into the house in Hill Street , Mrs. Carr had accepted from Jimmy Wrenn the rent of the first floor and the outside kitchen , which was connected with the back porch by a winding brick walk , overgrown with wild violets , while the upper story was let to two elderly spinsters , bearing the lordly , though fallen , name of Peterborough . These spinsters , like Mrs. Carr , spent their lives in a beautiful and futile pretence -- the pretence of keeping up an appearance . They also took in the plain sewing of their richer relatives , who lived in Franklin Street , and sent them little trays of sweet things as soon as the midday dinner was over on Sunday . Sometimes they would drop in to see Mrs. Carr just before supper was ready , and then they would pretend that they lived on tea and toast because they were naturally `` light eaters , '' and that they sewed all day , not for the money , but because they liked to have `` something to do with their hands '' They were tall thin women in organdie caps and black alpaca dresses made with long basques which showed a greenish cast in the daylight . The walls of their rooms were covered with family portraits of the colonial period , and Mrs. Carr , who had parted with most of her treasures , often wondered how they had preserved so many proofs of a distinguished descent . Even her silver had gone -- first the quaint old service with the Bolton crest , which had belonged to her mother ; then , one by one , the forks and spoons ; and , last of all , Gabriella 's silver mug , which was carried , wrapped in a shawl , to the shop of old Mr. Camberwell .