“Is your mother at home, little boy?” she asked, in a nervous voice. There were red spots on her thin cheeks; she was manifestly trembling.
The boy eyed her with a supercilious scorn and pity. He characterized her in his own mind of extreme youth and brutal truth as an ugly old woman, and yet he noted the trembling and felt like reassuring her. He took off his little cap. “No, ma'am,” said he. “Amy has gone to drive.”
“I wanted to see your mother,” said the woman, wonderingly.
“Amy is my mother,” replied the boy.
“Oh!” said the woman.
“They have all gone,” said Eddy.
“Then I shall have to call another time,” said the woman, with a mixture of ingratiation and despair.
The boy eyed her sharply. “Say,” he said, “are you the dressmaker that made my sister Ina's clothes for her to be married?”
“Yes, I be,” replied Madame Griggs.
“Then,” said Eddy, “I can tell you one thing, there isn't any use for you to go to my house now to get any money. I suppose you haven't been paid.”