But, as the years went on, she grew to be less of the shrinking Southern lady, more the boarding-house keeper.  If she wrote no bills, she kept them pretty straight in her head, and only her endless courage and industry kept the crazy enterprise afloat, and the three idle girls comfortable and decently dressed.  Theoretically, they “helped Ma.”  Really, one well-trained servant could have done far more than Mary Lou, Virginia and Georgie did between them.  This was, of course, primarily her own fault.  Ma belonged to the brisk and bustling type that shoves aside a pair of eager little hands, with “Here, I can do that better myself!” She was indeed proud of the fact that Mary Lou, at thirty-six, could not rent a room or receipt a bill if her life were at stake.  “While I’m here, I’ll do this, dear,” said Ma, cheerfully.  “When I’m gone you’ll have quite enough to do!”

Susan entered a small, square entrance-hall, papered in arabesques of green against a dark brown, where a bead of gas flickered dispiritedly in a red glass shade over the newel post.  Some fly-specked calling cards languished in the brass tray of an enormous old walnut hat-rack, where several boarders had already hung wraps and hats.

The upper part of the front door was set with two panels of beveled glass, decorated with a scroll design in frosted glass.  When Susan Brown had been a very small girl she would sometimes stand inside this door and study the passing show of Fulton Street for hours at a time.  Somebody would come running up the street steps, and pull the bell!  Susan could hear it tinkle far downstairs in the kitchen, and would bashfully retire to the niche by the hat-rack.  Minnie or Lizzie, or perhaps a Japanese schoolboy,—­whoever the servant of the hour might be, would come slowly up the inside stairs, and cautiously open the street door an inch or two.

A colloquy would ensue.  No, Mrs. Lancaster wasn’t in, no, none of the family wasn’t in.  He could leave it.  She didn’t know, they hadn’t said.  He could leave it.  No, she didn’t know.

The collector would discontentedly depart, and instantly Mary Lou or Georgie, or perhaps both, would hang over the railing in the upper hall.

“Lizzie, who was it?” they would call down softly, impatient and excited, as Lizzie dragged her way upstairs.

“Who was it, Mary Lou?”

“Why, how do I know?”

“Here, give it to me, Lizzie!”

A silence.  Then, “Oh, pshaw!” and the sound of a closing door.  Then Lizzie would drag downstairs again, and Susan would return to her silent contemplation of the street.

She had seen nothing particularly odd or unattractive about the house in those little-girl days, and it seemed a perfectly normal establishment to her now.  It was home, and it was good to get home after the long day.  She ran up the flight of stairs that the gas-bead dimly lighted, and up another, where a second gas-jet, this one without a shade, burned unsteadily and opened the door, at the back of the third-floor hall, that gave upon the bedroom that she shared with Mary Lou and Georgianna.  The boarding-house was crowded, at this particular time, and Georgie, who flitted about as a rule to whatever room chanced to be empty, was now quartered here and slept on a narrow couch, set at an angle from the bay-window, and covered with a worn strip of chenille.