We expressed our acknowledgments and sat down behind the door, where there was a lame invalid of a sofa. Mrs. Jellyby had very good hair but was too much occupied with her African duties to brush it. The shawl in which she had been loosely muffled dropped onto her chair when she advanced to us; and as she turned to resume her seat, we could not help noticing that her dress didn't nearly meet up the back and that the open space was railed across with a lattice-work of stay-lace--like a summer-house.
The room, which was strewn with papers and nearly filled by a great writing-table covered with similar litter, was, I must say, not only very untidy but very dirty. We were obliged to take notice of that with our sense of sight, even while, with our sense of hearing, we followed the poor child who had tumbled downstairs: I think into the back kitchen, where somebody seemed to stifle him.
But what principally struck us was a jaded and unhealthy-looking though by no means plain girl at the writing-table, who sat biting the feather of her pen and staring at us. I suppose nobody ever was in such a state of ink. And from her tumbled hair to her pretty feet, which were disfigured with frayed and broken satin slippers trodden down at heel, she really seemed to have no article of dress upon her, from a pin upwards, that was in its proper condition or its right place.

We thanked her and sat down on a limp sofa. Mrs. Jellyby had been too much occupied with her African duties to brush her hair; and when she turned, we could not help noticing that her dress didn't meet up at the back, but was railed across with a lattice-work of corset-lace.
The room, which was strewn with papers and nearly filled by a great writing-table, was, I must say, not only very untidy but very dirty. A jaded and unhealthy-looking girl sat at the writing-table, biting her pen and staring at us. Nobody ever was in such a state of ink. And from her tumbled hair to her pretty feet, which were disfigured with frayed and broken slippers, she really seemed to have no article of dress that was in its proper condition.
