That cost me two hundred crowns, not countin' the freight even. Baron
Klinkow hisself couldn't have nothin' better.

_MRS. SPILLER has entered shortly after MRS. KRAUSE. She is small,
slightly deformed and gotten up in her mistress's cast-off garments.
While MRS. KRAUSE is speaking she looks up at her with a certain
devout attention. She is about fifty-five years old. Every time she
exhales her breath she utters a gentle moan, which is regularly
audible, even when she speaks, as a soft_--m.

MRS. SPILLER

[_In a servile, affectedly melancholy, minor tone. Very softly._] His
lordship has exactly the identical sideboard--m--.

HELEN

[_To MRS. KRAUSE._] Mama, don't you think we had better sit down first
and then--

MRS. KRAUSE

[_Turns with lightning-like rapidity to HELEN and transfixes her with a
withering look; harshly and masterfully._] Is that proper?

[_She is about to sit down but remembers that grace has not been
said. Mechanically she folds her hands without, however, mastering
her malignity._

MRS. SPILLER