"Dish yer's a moughty good melon, Marster," he said, and returned to his feast.
As I was about to place my foot on the bottom step and begin the difficult ascent, my eyes, raised to our sitting-room window, hung spellbound on a black and white sign fastened against the panes:
"Fine laundering. Old laces a specialty. Desserts made to order."
"Old laces a specialty," I repeated, as if struck by the phrase. Then, as my strength failed me, I sank on the stone step in the patch of shade, and buried my face in my hands.
CHAPTER XXIX
IN WHICH WE RECEIVE VISITORS
I was still sitting there, with my head propped in my hands, when my eyes, which had seen nothing before, saw Sally coming through the hot dust in the street, with George Bolingbroke, carrying a bundle under his arm, at her side. As she neared me a perplexed and anxious look—the look I had seen always on the face of my mother when the day's burden was heavy—succeeded the smiling brightness with which she had been speaking to George.
"Why, Ben!" she exclaimed, quickening her steps, "what are you doing out here in this terrible heat?"
"I got down and couldn't get back," I answered.