"Yes, ma."
"Come out to your supper. I'll warm up the kohlrabi."
Miss Hassiebrock strode through a pair of chromatic portières, with them swinging after her, and into an unlit kitchen, gray with dusk. A table drawn out center and within range of the gas-range was a blotch in the gloom, three figures surrounding it with arms that moved vaguely among a litter of dishes.
"I wish to Heaven somebody in this joint would remember to keep those front windows shut!"
Miss Ida Bell Hassiebrock, at the right of the table, turned her head so that, against the window, her profile, somewhat thin, cut into the gloom.
"There's a lot of things I wish around here," she said, without a ripple to her lips.
"Hello, ma!"
"I'll warm up the kohlrabi, Loo."
Mrs. Hassiebrock, in the green black of a cotton umbrella and as sparse of frame, moved around to the gas-range, scraping a match and dragging a pot over the blue flame.
"Never mind, ma; I ain't hungry."