The crackling of shells went on behind, and a stifled sob arose
as a bit of sharp edge cut into the thin, worn fingers that
clasped the knife.

"Hurry up there, will you?" growled the black brows; "the Eliots
are sending for the oysters."

She deftly strained and counted them, and, after wiping her
fingers, resumed her seat, and took up the endless crochet work,
with her usual stifled sigh.

Tony and his wife had always been in this same little queer old
shop on Prytania Street, at least to the memory of the oldest
inhabitant in the neighbourhood. When or how they came, or how
they stayed, no one knew; it was enough that they were there,
like a sort of ancestral fixture to the street. The
neighbourhood was fine enough to look down upon these two
tumble-down shops at the corner, kept by Tony and Mrs. Murphy,
the grocer. It was a semi-fashionable locality, far up-town,
away from the old-time French quarter. It was the sort of
neighbourhood where millionaires live before their fortunes are
made and fashionable, high-priced private schools flourish, where
the small cottages are occupied by aspiring school-teachers and
choir-singers. Such was this locality, and you must admit that
it was indeed a condescension to tolerate Tony and Mrs. Murphy.

He was a great, black-bearded, hoarse-voiced, six-foot specimen
of Italian humanity, who looked in his little shop and on the
prosaic pavement of Prytania Street somewhat as Hercules might