elusive that
Saxon could not analyze nor place it.

"Uh, huh," Billy said, when she had told him that evening of the day's
event. "So SHE'S Mrs. Higgins? He's a watchman. He's got only one arm.
Old Higgins an' her--a funny bunch, the two of them. The people's scared
of her--some of 'em. The Dagoes an' some of the old Irish dames thinks
she's a witch. Won't have a thing to do with her. Bert was tellin' me
about it. Why, Saxon, d'ye know, some of 'em believe if she was to get
mad at 'em, or didn't like their mugs, or anything, that all she's got
to do is look at 'em an' they'll curl up their toes an' croak. One of
the fellows that works at the stable--you've seen 'm--Henderson--he
lives around the corner on Fifth--he says she's bughouse."

"Oh, I don't know," Saxon defended her new acquaintance. "She may be
crazy, but she says the same thing you're always saying. She says my
form is not American but French."

"Then I take my hat off to her," Billy responded. "No wheels in her head
if she says that. Take it from me, she's a wise gazabo."

"And she speaks good English, Billy, like a school teacher, like what I
guess my mother used to speak. She's educated."

"She ain't no fool, or she wouldn't a-sized you up the way she did."

"She told me to congratulate you on your good taste in marrying me,"
Saxon laughed.

"She did, eh? Then give her my love. Me for her, because she knows a
good thing when she sees it, an' she ought to be congratulating you on
your good taste in me."

It was on another day that Mercedes Higgins nodded, half to Saxon, and
half to the dainty women's things Saxon was hanging on the line.

"I've been worrying over your washing, little new-wife," was her
greeting.

"Oh, but I've worked in the laundry for years," Saxon said quickly.

Mercedes sneered scornfully.

"Steam laundry. That's business, and it's stupid. Only common things
should go to a steam laundry. That is their punishment for being common.
But the pretties! the dainties! the flimsies!--la la, my dear, their
washing is an art. It requires wisdom, genius, and discretion fine as
the clothes are fine. I will give you a recipe for homemade soap. It
will not harden the texture. It will give whiteness, and softness, and
life. You can wear them long, and fine white clothes are to be loved a
long time. Oh, fine washing is a refinement, an art. It is to be done as
an artist paints a picture, or writes a poem, with love, holily, a true
sacra