In the penetrating glare of the impenetrable spectacles she studied the white face before her.
"You wait a minute," she concluded. "Not inside. Out here on the stoop."
She came outside herself and closed and locked the door.
"I'll be back soon," she said, and Violet dumbly watched her lank, hatless form stride to Sixth Avenue and turn the corner.
True to her word, Mrs. Turner was not long gone.
"I guess it's all right," she announced, as she reopened the door to the house. "I 'phoned that woman to the settlement. She was out, but a friend answered and said the reference is genuwine. She described you so's I'd be sure. Looks queer of me, p'r'aps, but a person can't be too careful in this town."
The gleaming glasses seeming to search her soul for a reply, Violet said that she supposed a great deal of care was necessary.
"Try to get along without it," responded Mrs. Turner, "and you'll mighty soon find out."
That ended preliminaries, and Violet, agreeing to send for her few belongings, began work without further formality.
She discovered that Mrs. Turner was a New Englander, who conducted a boarding-house in a manner that sensibly stirred the servants' sympathies in favor of the patrons. Just now the season had greatly decreased these, but the absence of the cook—it was a chronic absence—left plenty to be done.