seem in a modern drawing-room. You instinctively thought of wild
mountain-passes, and the gleaming dirks of bandit contadini in
looking at him. What his last name was, no one knew. Someone
had maintained once that he had been christened Antonio
Malatesta, but that was unauthentic, and as little to be believed
as that other wild theory that her name was Mary.

She was meek, pale, little, ugly, and German. Altogether part of
his arms and legs would have very decently made another larger
than she. Her hair was pale and drawn in sleek, thin tightness
away from a pinched, pitiful face, whose dull cold eyes hurt you,
because you knew they were trying to mirror sorrow, and could not
because of their expressionless quality. No matter what the
weather or what her other toilet, she always wore a thin little
shawl of dingy brick-dust hue about her shoulders. No matter
what the occasion or what the day, she always carried her
knitting with her, and seldom ceased the incessant twist, twist
of the shining steel among the white cotton meshes. She might
put down the needles and lace into the spool-box long enough to
open oysters, or wrap up fruit and candy, or count out wood and
coal into infinitesimal portions, or do her housework; but the
knitting was snatched with avidity at the first spare moment, and
the worn, white, blue-marked fingers, half enclosed in kid-glove
stalls for protection, would writhe and twist in and out again.
Little girls just learning to crochet borrowed their patterns
from Tony's wife, and it was considered quite a mark of
advancement to have her inspect a bit of lace done by eager,
chubby fingers. The ladies in larger houses, whose husbands
would be millionaires some day, bought her lace, and gave it to
their servants for Christmas presents.