There was a pause--a pause which held not a small measure of
embarrassment. But the two visitors, although they were women of the
world, and so dreaded an embarrassment more than they did sin, had
prepared themselves even to stand this.

The old lady standing there--she was very much thinner, very much
bent, but still the same--appeared to be looking not at them, but at
their enumeration.

"Comfort!" She opened a pot bubbling on the fire. "Bouillon! A good
five-cent bouillon. Luxury!" She picked up something from a chair,
a handful of new cotton chemises. "Luxury!" She turned back her
bedspread: new cotton sheets. "Did you ever lie in your bed at night
and dream of sheets? Comfort! Luxury! I should say so! And friends! My
dear, look!" Opening her door, pointing to an opposite gallery, to
the yard, her own gallery; to the washing, ironing, sewing women, the
cobbling, chair-making, carpentering men; to the screaming, laughing,
crying, quarreling, swarming children. "Friends! All friends--friends
for fifteen years. Ah, yes, indeed! We are all glad--elated in fact.
As you say. I am restored."

The visitors simply reported that they had found the old lady, and
that she was imbecile; mind completely gone under stress of poverty
and old age. Their opinion was that she should be interdicted.




A DELICATE AFFAIR