I
And here was Angelica, the very next afternoon, sitting once more in her
mother’s underground kitchen, with the teapot handy beside her on the
stove and a familiar blue and white cup and saucer before her; but the
kitchen was not as in the old days. Now it was all disorder and dirt,
the clock had stopped, the floor was unswept, the bright blackness of
the stove was lost in a grayish fuzz. The mistress--or, one might better
say, the servant--of this little domain, who had worked so valiantly to
preserve its decency, was lying ill in the adjoining bedroom.
Angelica had got a brief note from her that morning at the
breakfast-table: