As for Sary Jane’s voice, when one knew that she made nankeen vests at sixteen and three quarters cents a dozen, that was a matter of no surprise.  It never surprised the Lady of Shalott.

But Sary Jane was very cross; there was no denying that; very cross.

And the palace.  Let me tell you about the palace.  It measured just twelve by nine feet.  It would have been seven feet post,—­if there had been a post in the middle of it.  From the centre it sloped away to the windows, where Sary Jane had just room enough to sit crooked under the eaves at work.  There were two windows and a loose scuttle to let in the snow in winter and the sun in summer, and the rain and wind at all times.  It was quite a diversion to the Lady of Shalott to see how many different ways of doing a disagreeable thing seemed to be practicable to that scuttle.  Besides the bed on which the Lady of Shalott lay, there was a stove in the palace, two chairs, a very ragged rag-mat, a shelf with two notched cups and plates upon it, one pewter teaspoon, and a looking-glass.  On washing-days Sary Jane climbed upon the chair and hung her clothes out through the scuttle on the roof; or else she ran a little rope from one of the windows to the other for a drying-rope.  It would have been more exact to have said on washing-nights; for Sary Jane always did her washing after dark.  The reason was evident.  If the rest of us were in the habit of wearing all the clothes we had, like Sary Jane, I have little doubt that we should do the same.

I should mention that there was no sink in the Lady of Shalott’s palace; no water.  There was a dirty hydrant in the yard, four flights below, which supplied the Lady of Shalott and all her neighbors.  The Lady of Shalott kept her coal under the bed; her flour, a pound at a time, in a paper parcel, on the shelf, with the teacups and the pewter spoon.  If she had anything else to keep, it went out through the palace scuttle and lay on the roof.  The Lady of Shalott’s palace opened directly upon a precipice.  The lessor of the house called it a flight of stairs.  When Sary Jane went up and down she went sidewise to preserve her balance.  There were no bannisters to the precipice, and about once a week a baby patronized the rat-trap, instead.  Once, when there was a fire-alarm, the precipice was very serviceable.  Four women and an old man went over.  With one exception (she was eighteen, and could bear a broken collar-bone), they will not, I am informed, go over again.

The Lady of Shalott paid one dollar a week for the rent of her palace.

But then there was a looking-glass in the palace.  I think I noticed it.  It hung on the slope of the rafters, just opposite the Lady of Shalott’s window,—­for she considered that her window at which Sary Jane did not make nankeen vests at sixteen and three quarters cents a dozen.