She did not start. She did not speak. She just stared at me out of as unpleasant-looking a pair of old eyes as I have ever looked into. I suspected at once why the old crone lived here by herself; she did not look as if she would be popular among her neighbours. "I think it is going to be a fine day," I continued breezily. She simply continued to stare; and if ever I saw suspicion in human eyes, I saw it in hers. "What do you think yourself?" I inquired with a smile. "I have no doubt you are more weatherwise than I." Then at last she spoke, and I thought I had never heard a more sinister remark. "Maybe it will be a fine day for some," she replied. "I hope I may be one of them!" I said as cheerfully as possible. She said not one word in reply, and her silence completed the ominous innuendo. It struck me that a word of explanation would be advisable. "My bicycle broke down," I said, "and I took the liberty of bringing it in here to repair it." Her baleful gaze turned upon my hapless motor-cycle. "What for did you have to mend it in here?" she inquired; very pertinently, I could not but admit. "It was the most convenient place I could find," I replied carelessly. "To keep it from the rain maybe?" she suggested. "Well," I admitted, "a roof has some advantages." "Then," said she, "you've been here a long while, for there's been no rain since I wakened up." "But I didn't say I came here for shelter," I said hastily. She stared at me again for a few moments. "You're saying first one thing and then the other," she pronounced. I felt inclined to tell her that she had missed her vocation. What a terrible specimen of the brow-beating, cross-examining lawyer she would have made! However, I decided that my safest line was cheerful politeness. "Have it your own way, my good dame!" I said lightly. Her evil eyes transfixed me. "You'll be a foreigner," she said. "A foreigner!" I exclaimed; "why on earth should you think that?" "You're using queer words," she replied. "What words?" I demanded. "Dame is the German for an old woman," said she. This astonishing philological discovery might have amused me at another time, but at this moment it only showed me too clearly how her thoughts were running. "Well," said I, "if it's German, I can only say it is the first word of that beastly language I've ever spoken!" Again I was answered by a very ominous silence. It occurred to me very forcibly that the sooner I removed myself from this neighbourhood the better. "Well," I said, "my bicycle is mended now, so I had better be off." "You had that," she agreed. "Good-bye!" I cried as I led my cycle out, but she never spoke a syllable in reply.