"I don’t know whether Mrs. Russell ’ll see any more of you," she said. "Such a crowd all morning! Come in, though." Angelica followed her into a large hall with a polished floor, where upon chairs ranged along the wall sat a row of women, beginning in darkness at the farther end of the hall, and ending in sunshine near the door, where Angelica took her seat. She sat for some minutes in a frozen quiet, until her awe of the great house and the severe servant and the unknown women ebbed away, and her natural curiosity came flowing back. Then she turned her head a little and saw them all, the whole row, staring at her. Her spine stiffened instinctively, and she began a deliberate survey of her rivals. The first two she couldn’t see, because they sat under the stairs in utter darkness. Then came a portly old lady with an immense alligator-skin bag; then a very composed, handsome woman in black. She got no further, for the servant came hurrying back across the slippery floor, to let in still another applicant. Angelica now joined with the others in staring at this new one--a blonde, superior young person, tightly corseted. She sat down next to Angelica, and once more the line composed itself to waiting. A quarter of an hour went by; then the old lady with the alligator bag began whispering to her neighbor in the dark, and that started a sort of general conversation in whispers. The information was passed along the line that "she"--the first one, under the stairs--had been there two hours. "I came here before about a month ago," whispered the one before Angelica. "She advertised, but she changed her mind and sent us all away." Angelica was surprised at the timidity of this person who was so obviously a lady, if a rather faded one. It gave her courage. Being a lady wasn’t the whole thing, then, after all. She was on the point of answering, when once more the parlour maid hurried past, to admit an extraordinary object. She was a tall, bony woman of perhaps fifty, dressed in a checked coat and riding-breeches, with a derby hat jammed down over her face and a confusion of red hair streaming from under it. As she crossed the hall, the last pin seemed to give way, and it all fell down about her shoulders. She made a helpless sort of gesture to put it right, found she couldn’t, and went on, with a long stride. Her face was overshadowed by her hat, but there were visible a sharp nose and a pointed chin. Her voice was unexpectedly soft and agreeable. "Good morning!" she said. "Who’s first?" The young blonde jumped up. "I, please!" she said. They were all struck dumb for a minute; then Angelica said boldly: "You’re not!" The lady in breeches turned her head briskly. "Never mind!" she said pleasantly. "I’ll see you first anyway. You’ll each have your turn; don’t worry!" The young woman followed her into a room across the hall, and the door was closed. "Well, I never!" cried a voice from the darkness.