Frances Hodgson Burnett

The Lost Prince Frances Hodgson Burnett

There are many dreary and dingy rows of ugly houses in certain parts of London, but therecertainly could not be any row more ugly or dingier than Philibert Place. There were stories that ithad once been more attractive, but that had been so long ago that no one remembered the time. Itstood back in its gloomy, narrow strips of uncared-for, smoky gardens, whose broken iron railingswere supposed to protect it from the surging traffic of a road which was always roaring with therattle of busses, cabs, drays, and vans, and the passing of people who were shabbily dressed andlooked as if they were either going to hard work or coming from it, or hurrying to see if they couldfind some of it to do to keep themselves from going hungry. The brick fronts of the houses wereblackened with smoke, their windows were nearly all dirty and hung with dingy curtains, or had nocurtains at all; the strips of ground, which had once been intended to grow flowers in, had beentrodden down into bare earth in which even weeds had forgotten to grow. One of them was used asa stone-cutter's yard, and cheap monuments, crosses, and slates were set out for sale, bearinginscriptions beginning with "Sacred to the Memory of." Another had piles of old lumber in it, another exhibited second-hand furniture, chairs with unsteady legs, sofas with horsehair stuffingbulging out of holes in their covering, mirrors with blotches or cracks in them. The insides of thehouses were as gloomy as the outside. They were all exactly alike. In each a dark entrance passageled to narrow stairs going up to bedrooms, and to narrow steps going down to a basement kitchen. The back bedroom looked out on small, sooty, flagged yards, where thin cats quarreled, or sat on thecoping of the brick walls hoping that sometime they might feel the sun; the front rooms looked overthe noisy road, and through their windows came the roar and rattle of it. It was shabby and cheerlesson the brightest days, and on foggy or rainy ones it was the most forlorn place in London