She boxed the ears of the Silvas who crowded about the visitors on the tiny front porch, and in more than usual atrocious English tried to apologize for her appearance.

Sleeves rolled up from soap-flecked arms and a wet gunny- sack around her waist told of the task at which she had been caught.

So flustered was she by two such grand young people asking for her lodger, that she forgot to invite them to sit down in the little parlor.

To enter Martin's room, they passed through the kitchen, warm and moist and steamy from the big washing in progress.

Maria, in her excitement, jammed the bedroom and bedroom-closet doors together, and for five minutes, through the partly open door, clouds of steam, smelling of soap- suds and dirt, poured into the sick chamber.
Ruth succeeded in veering right and left and right again, and in running the narrow passage between table and bed to Martin's side; but Arthur veered too wide and fetched up with clatter and bang of pots and pans in the corner where Martin did his cooking.