The little girl grinned coyly
"Why don't you answer the gentleman's question?" her mother rebuked her, in English. "It's Mr. Levinsky, a friend of papa's."
Lucy gave me a long stare and lost all interest in me. "Don't you like me at all? Not even a little bit?" I pleaded
She soon unbent and took to plying me with questions. Where did I live? Was I a "customer peddler "like her papa? How long had I been in America? (A question which a child of the East Side hears as often as it does queries about the weather.) "Can you spell?" "No," I answered. "Not at all?"
"Not at all!"
"Shame! But my papa can't spell, neither."
"Shut up, you bad girl you!" her mother broke in with a laugh. "Vere you lea'n such nasty things? By your mamma? The gentleman will think by your mamma."
She delivered her a little lecture in English, taking pains to produce the "th" and the American "r," though her "w's" were "v's."
She urged me not to let the tea get cold. As I took hold of the tall, thin, cylindrical glass I noted that it was scrupulously clean and that its contents had a good clear color. I threw a glance around the room and I saw that it was well kept and tidy
Mrs. Margolis took a seat again. Lucy, with part of a cooky in her mouth, stepped over to her and seated herself on her lap, throwing her arm around her. She struck me as the very image of her mother. Presently, however, I discovered that she resembled her father quite as closely. It seemed as though the one likeness lay on the surface of her face, while the other loomed up from underneath, as the reflection of a face does from under the surface of water. Lucy soon wearied of her mother and walked over to my side. I put her on my lap. She would not let me pat her, but she did not mind sitting on my knees.