The other occupant of the room was propped up carefully on the chair without arms. To its right, hanging from the chair back, was a little girl's well-worn coat; to its left, suspended from an elastic, was an equally shabby hat. And the pitiful condition of doll, coat, and hat was sharply accentuated by the background of the chair's verdant nap.
The doll's eyes were shoe buttons, of an ox-blood shade. They stared redly at the chirping canary.
The stairs creaked, and a woman came bustling down—a youngish woman with "rural" written in her over-long, over-full skirt, her bewreathed straw hat, and her three-quarters coat that testified to faithful service. Her face showed glad excitement. She pulled on cotton gloves as she came, and glanced upward over a shoulder.
"Tottie!—Tottie!"
"Hoo-hoo!" Miss St. Clair was in a jovial mood.
"Somebody's at the front door." The velour rocker held a half-dozen freshly wrapped packages, spoil of an earlier shopping expedition. Mrs. Colter gathered the packages together.
The bell began to ring more insistently, and with a certain rhythm. Tottie came down, in a tea-gown that was well past its prime, and that held the same relation to her abundant jewelry that marble fireplace and crystal chandelier sustained to her ornate furniture. "Don't go for just a minute, Mrs. Colter," she suggested, rotating her chewing-gum, and adjusting a flowered silk shawl.
There was a boy at the front door, a capped and uniformed urchin with a special delivery letter. "Miss Clare Crosby live here?" he inquired. Behind his back, in his other hand, the butt of a cigarette sent up a fragrant thread of smoke.
"You bet,"—and Miss St. Clair relieved him of the letter he proffered. He went down the steps at an alarming gait, and she came slowly into the parlor, studying the letter, feeling it inquiringly.
"I'm goin' to finish my tradin'," informed Mrs. Colter. "It'll be six months likely before I git down to N'York again."