"I mean you don’t use good English," said the boy. "I don’t talk English? What do I talk then—Dutch? What’s the matter with you?" "Oh, I’m just studying grammar, that’s all. Now you see I don’t need to go to school, the way you said. Mamsy teaches me every night." "Oh, she does, does she? Well, well! I hear she has a fine education; some say she’s went to college, even." "Yes, she has. She went to a woman’s college in the East, once." "Then what’s she living in this pigsty for, I’d like to know! It beats all, this room does. Let me come in for a moment and just look round a bit, will you? I won’t touch nothing at all, sure." The boy protested, and it might have come to a physical struggle had not footsteps been heard coming up the narrow stairway. The visitor peered over the railing of the balusters. "That’s her!" she whispered hoarsely. A head, rising, looked between the balusters, like a wild animal gazing through the bars of its cage. It was the head of a woman of twenty-seven or eight, and though her face had a strange, wild expression, with staring eyes, she was, or had undoubtedly been, a lady. Her hair, prematurely gray, was parted in the center and brought down in waves over her ears. Her eyebrows, in vivid contrast, were black; and between them a single vertical line cleft her forehead. What might have been a rare beauty was now distorted into something fantastic and mysterious, though when at rare intervals she smiled, a veil seemed to be drawn aside and she became an engaging, familiar, warm-hearted woman. She was dressed in a brilliant red gown and dolman of mosaic cloth with a Tyrolean hat of the period. Such striking color was, thirty years ago, uncommon upon the streets, but, even had it been more usual, the severity of her costume with neither a bustle nor the elaborate ruffles and trimmings then in vogue, would have made her conspicuous. She came up, with a white face, gasping for breath after her climb, one hand to her heart. For a moment she seemed unable to speak. Then suddenly and sharply she said: "Francis, shut the door!" The boy obeyed, coming out into the hall, with a hand still holding the knob. "The lady wanted me to let her in, but I wouldn’t do it, Mamsy," he said. Madam Grant turned her eyes upon the apologetic, cringing figure, whose thin, skinny fingers plucked at her shawl. "I just called neighborly like, thinkin’ maybe you’d give me a settin’, Madam Grant," she said. Madam Grant had come nearer, now, and stood gazing at her visitor. The expression of scorn had faded from her face, her eyes glazed. She spoke slowly in a deliberate monotone. "Your name is Margaret Riley." The woman nodded. Her lips had fallen open, and her eyes were fixed in awe. "Who are the three men I see beside you?" demanded Madam Grant. "They was only two! I swear to God they was only two!" "There is a little child, too."