He was an unattractive youth enough, that butcher boy.  Suspicion began to close in around Sallie that she spent the evenings when Anna was away, in company with this bad boy.

“Sallie is such a pretty girl, Miss Mathilda,” Anna said, “and she is so dumb and silly, and she puts on that red waist, and she crinkles up her hair with irons so I have to laugh, and then I tell her if she only washed her hands clean it would be better than all that fixing all the time, but you can’t do a thing with the young girls nowadays Miss Mathilda.  Sallie is a good girl but I got to watch her all the time.”

Suspicion closed in around Sallie more and more, that she spent Anna’s evenings out with this boy sitting in the kitchen.  One early morning Anna’s voice was sharply raised.

“Sallie this ain’t the same banana that I brought home yesterday, for Miss Mathilda, for her breakfast, and you was out early in the street this morning, what was you doing there?”

“Nothing, Miss Annie, I just went out to see, that’s all and that’s the same banana, ’deed it is Miss Annie.”

“Sallie, how can you say so and after all I do for you, and Miss Mathilda is so good to you.  I never brought home no bananas yesterday with specks on it like that.  I know better, it was that boy was here last night and ate it while I was away, and you was out to get another this morning.  I don’t want no lying Sallie.”

Sallie was stout in her defence but then she gave it up and she said it was the boy who snatched it as he ran away at the sound of Anna’s key opening the outside door.  “But I will never let him in again, Miss Annie, ’deed I won’t,” said Sallie.

And now it was all peaceful for some weeks and then Sallie with fatuous simplicity began on certain evenings to resume her bright red waist, her bits of jewels and her crinkly hair.

One pleasant evening in the early spring, Miss Mathilda was standing on the steps beside the open door, feeling cheerful in the pleasant, gentle night.  Anna came down the street, returning from her evening out.  “Don’t shut the door, please, Miss Mathilda,” Anna said in a low voice, “I don’t want Sallie to know I’m home.”

Anna went softly through the house and reached the kitchen door.  At the sound of her hand upon the knob there was a wild scramble and a bang, and then Sallie sitting there alone when Anna came into the room, but, alas, the butcher boy forgot his overcoat in his escape.

You see that Anna led an arduous and troubled life.

Anna had her troubles, too, with Miss Mathilda.  “And I slave and slave to save the money and you go out and spend it all on foolishness,” the good Anna would complain when her mistress, a large and careless woman, would come home with a bit of porcelain, a new etching and sometimes even an oil painting on her arm.