Page:Famous stories from foreign countries.djvu/129

 that the woman had seen better days, although her manner was rather bold than gentle, and the smile certainly was not pleasant. The long train of the pale, grey street dress floated out over the dirty floor, and when she seated herself she could not help remembering a witticism of Heine’s: “You look like a bonbon that has been lying in the sun.”

The conversation began and progressed as is the custom with such conversations. If each of these women had kept to the usual tone of her conversation, neither would have understood a word of what the other said.

But since the poor know the rich so much better than the rich know the poor, they hit upon a form of speech, which experience had taught, and which is so far successful that the rich are at once put in mood to give. Better than this they can not know each other.

This speech the poor woman understood to perfection, and soon Mrs. Warden began to comprehend their miserable life. She had two children, one a boy of four or five who lay on the floor, and a baby.

Mrs. Warden looked attentively at the little colorless creatures and could not believe that the baby was thirteen months old. She had a baby at home of seven months who was twice as large.

“You ought to feed the baby something strengthening,” she said. Then she said something that floated through her head about prepared foods. At the words “something strengthening,” an unkempt head rose from the straw bed. It was the pale, hollow-eyed face of a man, with a cloth tied tightly about his forehead.