The little girl across the street was of course instantly aware of Jane, though she pretended not to be; and from the first her self-importance was in large part assumed for the benefit of the observer.  After a momentary silence, due to her failure to think of any proper response to the workman who so pointedly criticized her, she resumed the peremptory direction of her affairs.  She ran in and out of the house, her brow dark with frowns, her shoulders elevated; and by every means at her disposal she urged her audience to behold the frightful responsibilities of one who must keep a thousand things in her head at once, and yet be ready for decisive action at any instant.

There may have been one weakness in this strong performance:  the artistic sincerity of it was a little discredited by the increasing frequency with which the artist took note of her effect.  During each of her most impressive moments, she flashed, from the far corner of her eye, two questions at Jane:  “How about that one?  Are you still watching Me?”

Then, apparently in the very midst of her cares, she suddenly and without warning ceased to boss, walked out into the street, halted, and stared frankly at Jane.

Jane had begun her automatic feeding again.  She continued it, meanwhile seriously returning the stare of the new neighbor.  For several minutes this mutual calm and inoffensive gaze was protracted; then Jane, after swallowing the last morsel of her supplies, turned her head away and looked at a tree.  The little girl, into whose eyes some wistfulness had crept, also turned her head and looked at a tree.  After a while, she advanced to the curb on Jane’s side of the street, and, swinging her right foot, allowed it to kick the curbstone repeatedly.

Jane came out to the sidewalk and began to kick one of the fence-pickets.

“You see that ole fatty?” asked the little girl, pointing to one of the workmen, thus sufficiently identified.

“Yes.”

“That’s the one broke the goldfish,” said the little girl.  There was a pause during which she continued to scuff the curbstone with her shoe, Jane likewise scuffing the fence-picket.  “I’m goin’ to have papa get him arrested,” added the stranger.

“My papa got two men arrested once,” Jane said, calmly.  “Two or three.”

The little girl’s eyes, wandering upward, took note of Jane’s papa’s house, and of a fierce young gentleman framed in an open window up-stairs.  He was seated, wore ink upon his forehead, and tapped his teeth with a red penholder.

“Who is that?” she asked.

“It’s Willie.”

“Is it your papa?”

“No-O-O-O!” Jane exclaimed.  “It’s Willie!”

“Oh,” said the little girl, apparently satisfied.

Each now scuffed less energetically with her shoe; feet slowed down; so did conversation, and, for a time, Jane and the stranger wrapped themselves in stillness, though there may have been some silent communing between them.  Then the new neighbor placed her feet far apart and leaned backward upon nothing, curving her front outward and her remarkably flexible spine inward until a profile view of her was grandly semicircular.