She wore spectacles set in tortoise-shell
frames, and she wore her iron-gray hair straight back behind small,
funnel-shaped ears, and gathered into the tightest knot behind. Her
head was flat and narrow at the summit, though broad at and above the
base of the brain. Her forehead, wide yet low, was ignoble in
expression. The mouth, shaped like a horseshoe, was curved down at the
corners, and was full of sullen resolution. The nose, pinched, yet not
pointed, showed scarcely any nostril, and might as well have been made
of wood, for any meaning it betrayed. Her eyebrows were short, wide,
rugged, and irregular, though very black; the cast-down eyes, of course,
so far inscrutable.

She was shaping a flimsy, black-silk dress, and doing it deftly, though
it was a marvel to me how hands so stiff and cramped as hers appeared to
be could handle a needle at all.

On one of these gnarled and unlovely fingers she wore a ring which, in
the idleness of the mood that possessed me, I examined listlessly. It
was an old-fashioned and slender circle of gold, so pale that it looked
silvery, such as in times long past had commonly been used either for
troth-plight or marriage-vows, surmounted by two small united hearts of
the same dull metal by way of ornament. Mrs. Austin, I remembered,
possessed one, the aversion of my childhood, that seemed its
counterpart.

My weary eyes wandered from her at last, to take in the accessories of
my chamber, tiny as this was, and I saw that against the wall were
hanging a gentleman's greatcoat and hand-satchel. Cigars and books were
piled on the same table which held the spool and scissors of my
companion, and a pair of cloth slippers, embroidered with colored
chenilles and quilted lining, of masculine size and shape, reposed upon
the floor. A cane and umbrella were secured neatly in a small corner
rack. There were no traces, I saw, of feminine occupancy beyond the
transient implements of industry alluded to.

Suddenly, in their languid, listless roving, my eyes encountered those
of my attendant fixed full upon me, while a smile distorted the homely,
sallow face, disclosing a set of yellow teeth, sound, short, and strong,
like regular grains of corn.

In those eyes, in that mouth and saffron teeth, lay the whole power and
character of this repulsive and disagreeable physiognomy.

Those feline orbs of mingled gray and green, with their small, pointed
pupils, were keen, vigilant, and observing beyond a