rating gaze was the most effective greeting he received. Mrs.
Hudson rose with a soft, vague sound of distress, and stood looking at
him shrinkingly and waveringly, as if she were sorely tempted to
retreat through the open window. Mr. Striker swung his long leg a trifle
defiantly. No one, evidently, was used to offering hollow welcomes or
telling polite fibs. Rowland introduced himself; he had come, he might
say, upon business.

"Yes," said Mrs. Hudson tremulously; "I know--my son has told me. I
suppose it is better I should see you. Perhaps you will take a seat."

With this invitation Rowland prepared to comply, and, turning, grasped
the first chair that offered itself.

"Not that one," said a full, grave voice; whereupon he perceived that a
quantity of sewing-silk had been suspended and entangled over the back,
preparatory to being wound on reels. He felt the least bit irritated at
the curtness of the warning, coming as it did from a young woman whose
countenance he had mentally pronounced interesting, and with regard to
whom he was conscious of the germ of the inevitable desire to produce a
responsive interest. And then he thought it would break the ice to say
something playfully urbane.

"Oh, you should let me take the chair," he answered, "and have the
pleasure of holding the skeins myself!"

For all reply to this sally he received a stare of undisguised amazement
from Miss Garland, who then looked across at Mrs. Hudson with a glance
which plainly said: "You see he 's quite the insidious personage we
feared." The elder lady, however, sat with her eyes fixed on the ground
and her two hands tightly clasped. But touching her Rowland felt much
more compassion than resentment; her attitude was not coldness, it was
a kind of dread, almost a terror. She was a small, eager woman, with a
pale, troubled face, which added to her apparent age. After looking at
her for some minutes Rowland saw that she was still young, and that she
must have been a very girlish bride. She had been a pretty one, too,
though she probably had looked terribly frightened at the altar. She
was very delicately made, and Roderick had come honestly by his physical
slimness and elegance. She wore no cap, and her flaxen hair, which was
of extraordinary fineness, was smoothed and confined with Puritanic
precision. She was excessively shy, and evidently very humble-minded; it
was singular to see a woman to whom the experience of life had conveyed
so li