Her boarding-house, so familiar to him financially, for which he was endlessly buying saucepans and tablecloths and towels, was a dingy old place in the west Twenties. Even from the outside it had the Minnie touch, bedraggled lace curtains and crooked shades. He rang the bell, and waited with a fast beating heart. To see Minnie again, after all this time! The door was opened reluctantly by a young girl. (Everything in that house was done reluctantly). “Mrs. Naylor? I’ll see.... Is it about rooms?” Surely that voice, that accent ...? He stared at her insistently in the darkness of the hall. “Why!” he cried, “Isn’t it Sandra? Come into the light, my dear. Do you remember Uncle Chris?” “I’ve heard Mother speak of you,” she answered listlessly, and turned up the gas. “Oh, Sandra!” he cried again. “My dear ...! You’re--you don’t look very well!” “I’m all right,” she replied, in languid surprise. “I’ve always been thin.” “Thin!” he thought. “My child, you’re dying!” But he said only that she was growing too fast, and smiled and patted her head. He waited in the dark hall while she went to fetch her mother, and he was haunted by her awful and heart-breaking loveliness--the unmistakable shadow on her face. She came back to lead him down into the basement. He noticed that there were holes in her stockings and that her dress was very shabby. In the basement dining-room he found Minnie, and was welcomed without much cordiality. And if Sandra had shocked him in one way, Minnie shocked him in another. She was so much changed; so much older, she had quite a middle-aged look, she was much stouter, she was--he couldn’t deny it--she was almost common, with her bright eyes and her sharp nose and her double chin. And as badly dressed as ever, perhaps a little more spotty. Her old air of anxiety had left her, it was now no more than a shadow, a comfortable way of sighing at life in general. She was happier than she had ever been before. Her health was excellent, she was free to do as she pleased, and she was much admired. She had had more than one offer of marriage from boarders who respected the fortitude, the maternal affection and the business ability of this remarkable woman. But she had no further use for men. “I’ve seen enough of them!” she would say. It was evident that she had suffered bitterly at their hands. Her air towards Mr. Petersen implied that she was magnanimously willing to let bygones be bygones. They talked of the boarders; they were, for the most part, satisfactory, she said. The usual troubles, which one must expect in this life, above all if one were a woman alone in the world, and honest. He spoke of Sandra. Minnie admitted that she was not strong, but that in her circumstances, she couldn’t do much for her. “Send her out to us,” he urged. “The climate would be just the thing for her.” “No, _thanks_!” Minnie answered, with irony, indicating her opinion of the tone of Mr. Petersen’s household.