"
"Didn't she teach your sister also?"
"Miss Black-Hair" dropped her eyes and flushed a little, looking like a
child caught in a lie. "Of course," she said after a pause.
"How long have you been without your mother?"
"I've been away from home four months. But I saw her in the street
yesterday. She didn't see me though."
"Then you've got a step-father?"
"No, I haven't. Nellie told that to Mrs. Sands. But it's not so. You know
Nellie's not my sister?"
"I fancied not from what you said a moment ago."
"No, she used to be nurse girl in our family. We just say we're sisters. I
wish she'd come. I'm tired of standing. Won't you come in?"
She went into her room, her manner a frank and simple invitation. Howard
hesitated, then went just inside the door and half sat, half leaned upon
the high roll of the lounge. The room was cheaply furnished, the lounge and
a closed folding bed almost filling it. Upon the mantel, the bureau and the
little table were a few odds and ends that stamped it a woman's room. A
street gown of thin pale-blue cloth was thrown over a rocking chair. As the
girl leaned back in this chair with her face framed in the pale-blue of the
gown, she looked tired and sad and beautiful and very young.
"If Nellie doesn't look out, I'll go away and live alone," she said, and
the accompanying unconscious look of loneliness touched Howard.
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