me the sound of a violin, playing a lively air.

When the young man stepped through the doorway he was at once
encompassed with the strangest blend of odours; every article in the
shop--groceries of all kinds, pastry, cooked meat, bloaters,
newspapers, petty haberdashery, firewood, fruit, soap--seemed to exhale
its essence distressfully under the heat; impossible that anything sold
here should preserve its native savour. The air swarmed with flies,
spite of the dread example of thousands that lay extinct on sheets of
smeared newspaper. On the counter, among other things, was a perspiring
yellow mass, retailed under the name of butter; its destiny hovered
between avoirdupois and the measure of capacity. A literature of
advertisements hung around; ginger-beer, blacking, blue, &c., with a
certain 'Samaritan salve,' proclaimed themselves in many-coloured
letters. One descried, too, a scrubby but significant little card,
which bore the address of a loan office.

The music issued from the parlour behind the shop; it ceased as Ackroyd
approached the counter, and at the sound of his footsteps appeared Mrs.
Bower. She was a stout woman of middle age, red of face, much given to
laughter, wholesomely vulgar. At four o'clock every afternoon she laid
aside her sober garments of the working day and came forth in an
evening costume which was the admiration and envy of Paradise Street.
Popular from a certain wordy good-humour which she always had at
command, she derived from this evening garb a social superiority which
friends and neighbours, whether they would or no were constrained to
recognise. She was deemed a well-to-do woman, and as such--Paradise
Street held it axiomatic--might reasonably adorn herself for the
respect of those to whom she sold miscellaneous pennyworths. She did
not depend upon the business. Her husband, as we already know, was a
foreman at Egremont & Pollard's oilcloth manufactory; they were known
to have money laid by. You saw in her face that life had been smooth
with her from the beginning. She wore a purple dress with a yellow
fichu, in which was fixed a large silver brooch; on her head was a
small lace cap. Her hands were enormous, and very red. As she came into
the shop, she mopped her forehead with a handkerchief; perspiration
streamed from every pore.

'What a man you are for keepin' yourself cool, Mr. Hackroyd!' she
exclaimed; 'it's like a breath o' fresh air to look at you, I'm sure.
If this kind o'