The small room where the trio sat was void of any real cheer. A pygmy stove, at one side of it, stood fuel-choked and nearly florid in hue. From this a strong volume of heat engulfed Mrs. Twining in its oppressive spell, but lost vigor before it reached her husband or Claire, and left the corners of the apartment so frigid that a gaunt sofa, off where the light of the big oil-lamp could only vaguely touch it, took upon its slippery hair-cloth surface the easy semblance of ice. Two windows, not fashioned to thwart the unwonted bitterness of the weather, were draped with nothing more resistant than a pair of canvas shades, gorgeously pictorial in the full light of day, when seen by the passer who seldom passed. These shades were of similar designs; in justice to Mrs. Twining it must be told that they had been rented with the house. On each a plumed gentleman in a gondola held fond converse with a disheveled lady in a balcony. The conception was no less Venetian in meaning than vicious in execution; but to-night, for any observant wayfarer, such presentments of sunny Italy, while viewed between blotches of wan frost that crusted the intervening panes, must have appeared doubly counterfeit. Still, the chief discomfort of the chamber, just at present, was a layer of brooding cold that lay along its floor, doggedly inexterminable, and the sole approach to regularity of temperature that its four walls contained. It had made Claire gather up her feet toward the top rung of her chair, and shiver once or twice, but it had not chilled the pretty gayety of her childish talk, all of which had thus far been addressed to her father. "And so you like Mrs. Carmichael, my dear?" Twining had said, in his smooth, cheerful voice. "Well, I am glad of that." "Oh yes, I like her," replied Claire, with a slight, wise nod of her head, where the clear gold of youth had not yet given way to the brown-gold of maidenhood. "But I think it strange that all her fine friends have dropped off from her. That's what she told me to-day, Father; truly, she did! Why don't they care for her any more? Is it because she's poor and has to teach little dunces like me?" Twining's feminine blue eyes scanned the rather dingy tablecloth for a moment. "I am afraid it is," he said, in a low voice, pressing between his fingers a bit of ill-baked bread that grew doughy at a touch. Mrs. Twining ceased to carve the obdurate beefsteak, though still retaining her hold on the horn-handled knife and fork. She lifted her head so that it quite towered above the formidable group of casters, and looked straight at her husband. "Don't put false notions into the child, Francis," she said, each word seeming to strike the next with a steely click. "You're always doing it. _You_ know nothing of where that woman came from, or who she is." Twining looked at his wife. His gaze was very mild. "I only know what she has told me, Jane," he said.