Although I was well known to the old woman, had chatted with her a great many times and had seen her work, I had never before been fortunate enough to find her making her famous chairs, contrivances, by the way, which would probably provoke the mirth or arouse the pity of an expert workman, but which were nevertheless ingenious in a way, and were really wonderful productions for a woman who had passed the allotted span of life. Now I had her before me actually making these things,—the old lady with her strong and still handsome, kindly Romany face,—and I found my mind working quickly, presenting to me and unrolling before me, as it were in a dream, a panorama of her untainted record of years and years of toil,—such as “society” cannot even imagine,—carried on day, month and year, in and out, in order to earn, together with her husband, enough to enable them to keep a hold on life, and rear their children; later on, working by herself for years to support her invalid husband, afterwards giving him decent burial, living her life through with never more of the necessaries of life at hand than enough for the immediate future, and never more than a blanket between her and the sky, until the picture was disclosed that I now had before me in reality—the old woman, with one foot in the grave, one might say, her husband gone over to the majority, and all her children grown up and living apart; here she was, taking no anxious thought for the morrow, working as cheerily as ever, doing her best and leaving the rest to God,—one of Nature’s gentlewomen. Regaining full consciousness of my surroundings, which for the moment had become hazy, I heard her reply to my greeting— “Yes, pretty well, my Rye, thank you,—nothing to grumble about, anyway.” We maintained a desultory conversation while she kept on with her occupation of making babies’ and dolls’ chairs, so that I had ample demonstration of the process of manufacture.