Nell, of Shorne Mills by Charles Garvice

Beaumont Buildings is scarcely the place one would choose in which to spend a summer's day; for, though they reach unto the heavens, they are, like most of their kind, somewhat stuffy, the dust of the great city in all their nooks and corners, and the noise of the crowded life penetrates even to the topmost flat.

The agent, a man of fine imagination and unlimited descriptive powers, states that Beaumont Buildings is "situated in a fashionable locality"; but though Fashion may dwell close at hand, and its carriages sometimes roll luxuriously through the street in which the Buildings tower, the street is a grimy and rather squalid one, in which most of the houses are shops--shops of the cheap and useful kind which cater for the poor.