Throwing her apron over her head, Mrs. Woods led Budd, Betty and Kathryn down the rickety, dingy stairway to the second floor, where she knocked on a door once shining in its dark wood. But it had been painted and the paint had come off in peeling blotches. Budd ran down the one flight to get the other basket from the car. They waited and Mrs. Woods knocked again. Then there was a stir inside and slow steps approached the door. “Rosie’s out,” whispered Mrs. Woods, “and it’s a good thing. You just stand back a little and I’ll take in the basket.”
The door opened. A tall old woman with lined face stood there, looking soberly at the party. “How-de-do, Mrs. Sevilla,” said Mrs. Woods. “Here’s a basket that I’ll tell Rosie about when she comes in. It’s a present for you for Thanksgiving. I’ll just carry it in for you.”
The dark eyes looked puled and Mrs. Sevilla was probably going to make some protest, but Mrs. Woods calmly set the basket inside of the door, whose handle she took to close it. “How are you today, Mrs. Sevilla?” she asked.
The reply was made in a foreign tongue, but the question was evidently understood. With a puled look the apparently aged woman regarded the basket; and Mrs. Woods, backing out, gently closed the door. “Rosie will come home and find it and then she’ll come to see me, and it will be too late to give it back; see?”
Betty tried to thank Mrs. Woods, and wishing her a pleasant Thanksgiving, the trio hurried away. Betty knew now where she had seen the name Sevilla. But it might not mean anything. There were probably others of that name among the foreigners of the city. But the dark tragic eyes of the old lady haunted her.
Lilian wanted to know what had happened and listened to Kathryn’s full report, with vivid descriptions. “That certainly was the most mysterious old lady I’ve ever seen,” said Kathryn.
“I’ll say the most tragic,” said Betty.
In her turn Lilian had much to say about what the policeman had told Chauncey. “The street where we were,” said Lilian as they swiftly left the district, “is pretty good, the policeman said, with people mostly quiet except all the children; but only one street over and it is awful—I don’t know how many terrible things have happened there this year. He told us not to come that way after night and that the daytime was none too safe.”
“Oh, he was seeing how much he could scare you,” laughed Chauncey, but he and Budd exchanged looks.