"That'll do," her bewhiskered husband snarled. " "It's about time you gave your tongue a rest."
Auntie Yetta's golden teeth glittered good-humoredly. The next instant she called my attention to a woman who, driven to despair by the superiority of her "bosom friend's" gowns, had gone to the city for a fortnight, ostensibly to look for a new flat, but in reality to replenish her wardrobe. She had just returned, on the big "husband train," and now "her bosom friend won't be able to eat or sleep, trying to guess what kind of dresses she brought back."
Nor was this the only kind of gossip upon which Mrs. Kalch regaled me. She told me, for example, of some sensational discoveries made by several boarders regarding a certain mother of five children, of her sister who was "not a bit better," and of a couple who were supposed to be man and wife, but who seemed to be "somebody else's man and somebody else's wife."
At last Miss Tevkin and Miss Siegel entered the dining-room.
Something like a thrill passed through me. I felt like exclaiming,
"At last!"
"That's the one I met you with, isn't it? Not bad-looking," said Mrs.
Kalch
"Which do you mean?"
"'Which do you mean'! The tall one, of course; the one you were so sweet on.
Not the dwarf with the horse-face."
"They're fine, educated girls, both of them," I rejoined. "Both of them! As if it was all the same to you!" At this she bent over and gave me a glare and a smile that brought the color to my face. "The tall one is certainly not bad-looking, but we don't call that pretty in this place."
"Are there many prettier ones?" I asked, gaily