Book the First: Poverty Chapter 15 Mrs Flintwinch has another Dream

The debilitated old house in the city, wrapped in its mantle of soot,
and leaning heavily on the crutches that had partaken of its decay and
worn out with it, never knew a healthy or a cheerful interval, let what
would betide. If the sun ever touched it, it was but with a ray, and
that was gone in half an hour; if the moonlight ever fell upon it, it
was only to put a few patches on its doleful cloak, and make it look
more wretched.

The stars, to be sure, coldly watched it when the nights
and the smoke were clear enough; and all bad weather stood by it with
a rare fidelity. You should alike find rain, hail, frost, and thaw
lingering in that dismal enclosure when they had vanished from other
places; and as to snow, you should see it there for weeks, long after
it had changed from yellow to black, slowly weeping away its grimy life.
The place had no other adherents. As to street noises, the rumbling of
wheels in the lane merely rushed in at the gateway in going past, and
rushed out again: making the listening Mistress Affery feel as if she
were deaf, and recovered the sense of hearing by instantaneous flashes.

So with whistling, singing, talking, laughing, and all pleasant human
sounds. They leaped the gap in a moment, and went upon their way. The
varying light of fire and candle in Mrs Clennam's room made the greatest
change that ever broke the dead monotony of the spot. In her two long
narrow windows, the fire shone sullenly all day, and sullenly all night.
On rare occasions it flashed up passionately, as she did; but for the
most part it was suppressed, like her, and preyed upon itself evenly and
slowly.