"I'm glad to hear that," from Auntie in her own room through the open door.
Mrs. Wistar, however, spoke from her place at the window almost peevishly.
"Why must you bring up uncomfortable subjects, Selina? And here it is eleven o'clock in the morning and the house just straightened and I this moment sitting down to my church paper!"
"But Mamma, I've kept hoping you'd say something about it. You haven't and I felt I'd have to ask you."
"I try to spare people, myself," severely. "And just as long as I did not speak you might know it was because there was nothing to say. I must say I think Anna is niggardly to want it back. But one can't help one's blood and she's a Pope. 'Hungry as a Pope nigger,' the saying used to be in slave times, or was it a Groghan nigger? Yes, I believe it was a Groghan."
"'You haven't spoken to Papa about it?'"
"You haven't spoken to Papa about it? Then I'm going to, Mamma," Selina spoke with irritation. Her moods were uncertain these days.
She opened the door to her father that evening. It was a raw and shivery day. She helped him off with his coat and followed him back to the stove in the hall where he stood warming his hands at the glowing mica. By some unfortunate chance his glance wandered about, resting on the shabby papering and paint, the old sofa, the carpet worn to a monotone almost guiltless of pattern.