And Mrs. Atterson herself--good soul though she was--had gotten
on Hiram Strong's nerves, too. With her heat-blistered face,
near-sighted eyes peering through beclouded spectacles, and her
gown buttoned up hurriedly and with a gap here and there where
a button was missing, she was the typically frowsy, hurried,
nagged-to-death boarding house mistress.

And as for "Sister," Mrs. Atterson's little slavey and
maid-of-all-work---

"Well, Sister's the limit!" smiled Hiram, as he turned into the
street, with its rows of ugly brick houses on either hand. "I
believe Fred Crackit has got it right. Mrs. Atterson keeps
Sister instead of a cat--so there'll be something to kick."

The half-grown girl--narrow-chested, round shouldered, and
sallow--had been taken by Mrs. Atterson from some charity
institution. "Sister," as the boarders all called her, for
lack of any other cognomen, would have her yellow hair in four
attenuated pigtails hanging down her back, and she would shuffle
about the dining-room in a pair of Mrs. Atterson's old shoes---

"By Jove! there she is now," exclaimed the startled youth.

At the corner of the street several "slices" of the brick
block had been torn away and the lot cleared for the erection
of some business building. Running across this open space
with wild shrieks and spilling the milk from the big pitcher
she carried--milk for the boarders' tea, Hi knew--came