THERE was towards the center of the larger room a small almost cleared area where Miss Stilvey often sat in the constant dusk. Opposite her chair, which was high-backed and covered with damask, its arms immense and ornate, was the child's chair of shadowy white tufted satin dotted with a pale pattern of roses. Surrounding, quite crowding both of the chairs and covered with heights of sheeting and lengths of materials, were bureaus and tables and lamps and cabinets, jammed in edge to edge. There were stacks of newspapers, shoulder high, and rugs rolled and piled one on top of another haphazardly, and there were cartons and boxes and barrels and crates. The room was overwarm, the windows, a panel of them, were closed, the shades drawn as always against the season, against the hour, against the very minute.

Miss Stilvey leaned forward towards the child.

"Aren't you going to talk to me?" she asked, her moist old eyes half closed, her hair shadowy-white (like the satin) and looped carelessly, wispily, into a tortoise-fastened tuft above the waxy length of her face. The child, a girl, did not look at her. She sat on her child's chair swinging her feet slowly, slowly back, and forth, her stubby hands sunburned and firm and dirty against the long-waisted dress barely covering her knees.