The state in which her dresses were, and the extraordinary confusion in which she kept them, added not a little to our difficulty; but at length we devised something not very unlike what a common-place mother might wear on such an occasion. The abstracted manner in which Mrs. Jellyby would deliver herself up to having this attire tried on by the dressmaker, and the sweetness with which she would then observe to me how sorry she was that I had not turned my thoughts to Africa, were consistent with the rest of her behaviour.
The lodging was rather confined as to space, but I fancied that if Mrs. Jellyby's household had been the only lodgers in Saint Paul's or Saint Peter's, the sole advantage they would have found in the size of the building would have been its affording a great deal of room to be dirty in. I believe that nothing belonging to the family which it had been possible to break was unbroken at the time of those preparations for Caddy's marriage, that nothing which it had been possible to spoil in any way was unspoilt, and that no domestic object which was capable of collecting dirt, from a dear child's knee to the door-plate, was without as much dirt as could well accumulate upon it.
Poor Mr. Jellyby, who very seldom spoke and almost always sat when he was at home with his head against the wall, became interested when he saw that Caddy and I were attempting to establish some order among all this waste and ruin and took off his coat to help. But such wonderful things came tumbling out of the closets when they were opened--bits of mouldy pie, sour bottles, Mrs. Jellyby's caps, letters, tea, forks, odd boots and shoes of children, firewood, wafers, saucepan-lids, damp sugar in odds and ends of paper bags, footstools, blacklead brushes, bread, Mrs. Jellyby's bonnets, books with butter sticking to the binding, guttered candle ends put out by being turned upside down in broken candlesticks, nutshells, heads and tails of shrimps, dinner-mats, gloves, coffee-grounds, umbrellas--that he looked frightened, and left off again. But he came regularly every evening and sat without his coat, with his head against the wall, as though he would have helped us if he had known how.

The state of her dresses, and the extraordinary confusion in which she kept them, added to our difficulty; but at length we devised something not very unlike what a commonplace mother might wear. Mrs. Jellyby tried on this attire in an abstracted manner, observing how sorry she was that I had not turned my thoughts to Africa.
The lodging was rather confined, but if it had been the size of Saint Paul's it would only have afforded more room to be dirty in. I believe that none of the family possessions which it had been possible to break was unbroken at this time, nothing which it had been possible to spoil was unspoilt, and that no domestic object which was capable of collecting dirt was free of it.
Poor Mr. Jellyby, who very seldom spoke and almost always sat with his head against the wall, became interested when he saw that Caddy and I were attempting to establish some order, and took off his coat to help. But such wonderful things came tumbling out of the closets - bits of mouldy pie, sour bottles, letters, tea, forks, odd boots and shoes, firewood, saucepan-lids, brushes, candle ends, nutshells, dinner-mats, gloves, coffee-grounds, umbrellas - that he looked frightened, and stopped again. But he came regularly every evening and sat with his head against the wall, as though he would have helped us if he had known how.
