Anne-Marie's pink hats and Minna-made frocks had to last through the seasons long after the "coloured lady" had washed every vestige of tint and vitality out of them, and they were a thorn in Nancy's eye. Nancy wore her pepper-and-salt dress day after day; it turned, and it dyed--black, and when it was no more, she got another like it.
The days passed meanly and quickly. And Nancy learned that one can be dingy, and sordid, and poverty-stricken, and yet go on living, and gently drift down into the habit of it, and hardly remember that things were ever otherwise.
The evenings only were terrible. When Minna had gone home, and Anne-Marie slept, and Aldo had sauntered out to meet some Italians, or had hurried in full evening-dress to his work, Nancy sat drearily in the "parlour." From mantelpiece, shelf, and what-not photographs of unknown people, friends of Mrs. Johnstone, the landlady, gazed at her with faded faces and in obsolete attire; actresses in boy's clothes, and large-faced children; chinless young men in turned-down collars; Mr. and Mrs. Johnstone in bridal attire; their first-born baby with no clothes on, now a clerk at Macy's. Hanging on the wall, with whitish eyes that followed Nancy about, was the enlarged photograph of dead Mr. Johnstone, and Nancy, in her loneliness, feared him. She covered him one evening with a table-cloth, but it was worse. When, on her arrival months ago, she had collected all these photographs and hidden them away in a closet, Mrs. Johnstone, who liked to drop in suddenly, had arrived, and looked round with a red face.
"You don't want to do that," she had said, taking all the pictures out again and setting them up in their places. She also would not allow the large ornamental piano-lamp, that took up half the stuffy little room, to be moved. It had cost thirty-two dollars. So it stood there in the dark-carpeted, obscure parlour, and its yellow silk shade with the grimy white silk roses pinned on it was an outrage to Nancy's pained gaze.
One evening at bed-time Anne-Marie said to her mother: "I like the girl next door."
"You do not know her, darling," said Nancy.
"Oh yes, I do. I talked to her from the back-window."
"What is her name?" said Nancy, unfastening strings and buttons on her daughter's back.