The landlady, a stout and resolute woman,
entered with a studied smile, which changed gradually to a cold
civility. Her eyes, unlike Banquo's, had a deal of speculation in them.
One might read the price-current in the busy wrinkles. Around her
pursed-up mouth lurked the knowledge of the number of available slices
in a sirloin,--the judgment of the lump of butter that should leave no
margin for prodigality. Warfare with market-men, shrewish watchfulness
over servants, economy scarcely removed from meanness at the table, all
were clearly indicated in her flushed and hard-featured face.
Alice was not familiar with such people; but she shrank from her by
instinct, as the first chicken fled from the first hawk. The landlady,
on her part, was equally suspicious, and, finding that Alice had no
relatives to depend upon, and that she expected to earn her own living,
was not at all solicitous to increase the number of her boarders.
"It's pootty hard to tell who's who, now-a-days," she said. "I have to
pay cash for all I set on the table, and I can't trust to fair promises.
Perhaps, though, you've got some _cousin_ that looks arter your bills?"
The flute-player exchanged knowing glances with the seamstresses.
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