She laid one hand in the other and gave an imperceptible sigh; she wore a
great many rings. "What more can I say for you than that?"--such seemed
to be the meaning of the expression now on her face.

"My father"--began Jane; she was loud, slow, deliberate, emphatic. What
could the woman mean by receiving her in such a fashion? Were the
Marshalls mere upstarts, nobodies, newcomers, that they must be snubbed
and turned aside in any such way as this? Jane's eyes blinked and her
nostrils quivered. "My father," she began again, in the same tone, "is
David Marshall. He is very well known, I believe, in Chicago. We have
lived here a great many years. It seems to me that there ought to--"

"David Marshall?" repeated Mrs. Bates, gently. "Ah, I _do_ know David
Marshall--yes," she said; "or did--a good many years ago." She looked up
into Jane's face now with a completely altered expression. Her glance was
curious and searching, but it was very kindly. "And you are David
Marshall's daughter?" She smiled indulgently at Jane's outburst of spunk.
"Really--David Marshall's daughter?"

"Yes," answered Jane, with a gruff brevity. She was far from ready to be
placated yet.

"David Marshall's daughter! Then, my dear child, why not have said so in
the first place, without lugging in everybody and everything else you
could think of? Hasn't your father ever spoken of me? And how is he,
anyway? I haven't seen him--to really speak to him--for fifteen years. It
may be even more."

She seemed to have laid hands on a heavy bar, to have wrenched it from
its holds, to have flung it aside from the footpath, and to be inviting