The kitchen was furnished almost entirely with blue-flowered oilcloth; the tables were covered with it, the floor was covered with it, the shelves were draped in it. Cold struck up through the shining, clammy surface underfoot so that while Sheila's face burned from the heat of the stove her feet were icy. The back door was warped and let in a current of frosty air over its sill, a draught that circled her ankles like cold metal. On the table in the middle of the room, "Momma" had placed an enormous tin dish-pan piled high with dirty dishes, over which she was pouring the contents of the kettle. Steam rose in clouds, half-veiling her big, fierce face which, seen through holes in the vapor, was like that of a handsome, vulgar witch. Through the steam she shot at Sheila a cruel look. "Aren't you planning to do any work to-day, Sheila?" she asked in her voice of harsh, monotonous accents. "Here it's nine o'clock and I ain't been able to do a stroke to Babe's dress. I dunno what you was designed for in this house--an ornament on the parlor mantel, I guess." Sheila's heart suffered one of the terrible swift enlargements of angry youth. It seemed to fill her chest and stop her breath, forcing water into her eyes. She could not speak, went quickly up and took the kettle from "Momma's" red hand. The table at which dish-washing was done, was inconveniently high. When the big dishpan with its piled dishes topped it, Sheila's arms and back were strained over her work. She usually pulled up a box on which she stood, but now she went to work blindly, her teeth clenched, her flexible red lips set close to cover them. The Celtic fire of her Irish blood gave her eyes a sort of phosphorescent glitter. "Momma" looked at her. "Don't show temper!" she said. "What were you doin'? Upstairs work?" "I was writing a letter," said Sheila in a low voice, beginning to wash the plates and shrinking at the pain of scalding water. "Hmp! Writing letters at this hour! One of your friends back East? I thought it was about time somebody was looking you up. What do your acquaintance think of you comin' West with Sylly?" Now that she was at liberty to put a "stroke" of work; on Babe's dress, "Momma" seemed in no particular hurry to do so. She stood in the middle of the kitchen wrapping her great bony arms in her checked apron and staring at Sheila. Her eyes were like Girlie's turned to stone, as blank and blind as living eyes can be. Sheila did not answer. She was white and her hands shook. "Hmp!" said "Momma" again. "We aren't goin' to talk about our acquaintance, are we? Well, some folks' acquaintance don't bear talkin' about; they're either too fine or they ain't the kind that gets into decent conversation." She walked away.