Book The First: Poverty Chapter 9 Little Mother

Nor was it relieved by any glimpse of the little creature who had
brought him there. Perhaps she glided out of her doorway and in at that
where her father lived, while his face was turned from both; but he saw
nothing of her. It was too early for her brother; to have seen him once,
was to have seen enough of him to know that he would be sluggish to
leave whatever frowsy bed he occupied at night; so, as Arthur Clennam
walked up and down, waiting for the gate to open, he cast about in
his mind for future rather than for present means of pursuing his
discoveries.

At last the lodge-gate turned, and the turnkey, standing on the step,
taking an early comb at his hair, was ready to let him out. With a
joyful sense of release he passed through the lodge, and found himself
again in the little outer court-yard where he had spoken to the brother
last night. There was a string of people already straggling in, whom it was not
difficult to identify as the nondescript messengers, go-betweens, and
errand-bearers of the place. Some of them had been lounging in the rain
until the gate should open; others, who had timed their arrival
with greater nicety, were coming up now, and passing in with damp
whitey-brown paper bags from the grocers, loaves of bread, lumps of
butter, eggs, milk, and the like. The shabbiness of these attendants
upon shabbiness, the poverty of these insolvent waiters upon insolvency,
was a sight to see.