But as 'them two clever ones'-- Mrs Affery's perpetual reference, in whom her personality was swallowed up--were agreed to accept Little Dorrit as a matter of course, she had nothing for it but to follow suit.

Similarly, if the two clever ones had agreed to murder Little Dorrit by candlelight, Mrs Affery, being required to hold the candle, would no doubt have done it.
In the intervals of roasting the partridge for the invalid chamber, and preparing a baking-dish of beef and pudding for the dining-room, Mrs Affery made the communications above set forth; invariably putting her head in at the door again after she had taken it out, to enforce resistance to the two clever ones.

It appeared to have become a perfect passion with Mrs Flintwinch, that the only son should be pitted against them.
In the course of the day, too, Arthur looked through the whole house.
Dull and dark he found it.

The gaunt rooms, deserted for years upon years, seemed to have settled down into a gloomy lethargy from which nothing could rouse them again.

The furniture, at once spare and lumbering, hid in the rooms rather than furnished them, and there was no colour in all the house; such colour as had ever been there, had long ago started away on lost sunbeams--got itself absorbed, perhaps, into flowers, butterflies, plumage of birds, precious stones, what not.