She was a broad woman, with a face on which the cares and sorrows of the years had left a not too heavy impress.

She still enjoyed life, oven though a good part of it was spent at the wash-tub, washing other people's fine clothes.
She had some fine ones of her own up-stairs in her clothes-press; and, when she went out, it was in shiny satin, with a bonnet bobbing with jet and a red rose, though of late years, strictly speaking, the bonnet had become a hat again, and Mrs.Brady was in style with the other old ladies.
The perspiration was in little beads on her forehead and trickling down the creases in her well-cushioned neck toward her ample bosom.

Her gray hair was neatly combed, and her calico wrapper was open at the throat even on this cold day.

She wiped on her apron the soap-suds from her plump arms steaming pink from the hot suds, and went to the door.
She looked with disfavor upon the peculiar person on the door-step attired in a man's overcoat.

She was prepared to refuse the demands of the Salvation Army for a nickel for Christmas dinners; or to silence the banana-man, or the fish-man, or the man with shoe-strings and pins and pencils for sale; or to send the photograph-agent on his way; yes, even the man who sold albums for post-cards.