For my father had sold, with the goods, fixtures, and good-will of the Wheeler Street store, all his hopes of ever making a living in the grocery trade; and I doubt if he got a silver dollar the more for them.

We had to live somewhere, even if we were not making a living, so we came to Dover Street, where tenements were cheap; by which I mean that rent was low.

The ultimate cost of life in those tenements, in terms of human happiness, is high enough.
Our new home consisted of five small rooms up two flights of stairs, with the right of way through the dark corridors.

In the "parlor" the dingy paper hung in rags and the plaster fell in chunks.
One of the bedrooms was absolutely dark and air-tight.

The kitchen windows looked out on a dirty court, at the back of which was the rear tenement of the estate.