"That's all right," she asserted, carrying the pitcher out.
"Ah--Maria--I say, you--you might leave the door--ah, don't quite shut it--it's a bit close in here at times." Maria grinned, and swung the door wide.

Old Grannis was horribly embarrassed; positively, Maria was becoming unbearable.
"Got any junk ?" cried Maria at Miss Baker's door.

The little old lady was sitting close to the wall in her rocking-chair; her hands resting idly in her lap.
"Now, Maria," she said plaintively, "you are always after junk; you know I never have anything laying 'round like that." It was true.

The retired dressmaker's tiny room was a marvel of neatness, from the little red table, with its three Gorham spoons laid in exact parallels, to the decorous geraniums and mignonettes growing in the starch box at the window, underneath the fish globe with its one venerable gold fish.

That day Miss Baker had been doing a bit of washing; two pocket handkerchiefs, still moist, adhered to the window panes, drying in the sun.
"Oh, I guess you got something you don't want," Maria went on, peering into the corners of the room.