“To think, Mrs. Meyerburg, all my children gone out for a good time this afternoon, my Tillie with Morris Rinabauer, who can’t keep his eyes off her—­”

“How polished she keeps her stove, just like I used to.”

“Right when you knocked I was thinking, well, I clean up a bit.  Please, Mrs. Meyerburg, let me fix you right away a cup coffee—­”

“Right away, Mrs. Fischlowitz, just so soon you begin to make fuss over me, I don’t enjoy it no more.  Please, Mrs. Fischlowitz, right here in this old rocker-chair by the range let me, please, sit quiet a minute.”

In the wooden rocker beside the warm stove she sat down quietly, lapping her hands over her waist-line.

"Gott in Himmel," sitting well away from the chair-back and letting her eyes travel slowly about the room, “just like it was yesterday; just like yesterday.”  And fell to reciting the phrase softly.

“Ja, ja,” said Mrs. Fischlowitz, concealing an unwashed litter of dishes beneath a hastily flung cloth.  “I can tell you, Mrs. Meyerburg, my house ain’t always this dirty; only to-day not—­”

“Just like it was yesterday,” said Mrs. Meyerburg, musing through a tangle of memories.  She fell to rocking.  A narrow band of sunshine lay across the bare floor, even glinted off a pan or two hung along the wall over the sink.  Along that same wall hung a festoon of red and green peppers and a necklace of garlic.  Toward the back of the range a pan of hot water let off a lazy vapor.  Beside the scuttle a cat purred and fought off sleep.

“Already I got the hot water, Mrs. Meyerburg, to make you a cup coffee if—­”

“Please, Mrs. Fischlowitz, let me rest like this.  In a minute I want you should take me all through in the children’s room and—­”

“If I had only known it how I could have cleaned for you.”

“Ach, my noodle-board over there!  How grand and white you keep it.”

“Ja, I—­”

“Mrs. Fischlowitz!”

“Yes, Mrs. Meyerburg?”

“Mrs. Fischlowitz, if you want to—­to give me a real treat I tell you what.  I tell you what!”

“Ja, ja, Mrs. Meyerburg; anything what I can do I—­”

“I want you should let me mix you on that old board a mess noodles!”

“Ach, Mrs. Meyerburg, your hands and that grand black-silk dress!”

“For why not, Mrs. Fischlowitz?  Wide ones, like he used to like.  Just for fun, please, Mrs. Fischlowitz.  To-morrow I send you two barrels flour for what I use up.”

“But, Mrs. Meyerburg, I should make for you noodles, not you for me—­”

“It’s good I should learn, Mrs. Fischlowitz, to get back my hand in such things.  Maybe you don’t believe me, but I ain’t so rich like I was yesterday when you seen me, Mrs. Fischlowitz.  To-day I’m a poor woman, Mrs. Fischlowitz, with—­”

Mrs. Fischlowitz threw out two hands in a liberal gesture.  “Such a good woman she is!  In my house where I’m poor she wants, too, to play like she’s a poor woman.  That any one should want to play such a game with themselves!  Noodles she wants to make for me, instead I should wait on her like she was a queen.”