George Allan England

“ Alone, Miss Grush sat for a long time, pondering. Her earache must have grown worse, for she consumed three of her little cigars in quick succession, rocking there with eyes that smoldered, seated by the lamp-lit table.
“Daughter!” she muttered with splenetic grimness. “Cursed faker! He's a cool hand, that Veazie! Lockwood's a downright idiot. He'll go! Trust an old fool to make a proper good job of it!” ”

“ What sort of doings, Irene?”
“It's that there Perfessor Veazie, ma'am. I don't like that man, nohow!” Irene's eyes showed wide-rimmed with white. Her jaw gaped. “Comin' in here an' sittin' in the drawin'-room, ma'am, in a trance, like—with a skull in his hands, talkin' to it! An' I reckon the skull talk back at him, too! It ain't natchal, ma'am, an' it ain't right, in a 'spectable house. If things goes on this way—”
Miss Grush peered sharply at the maid, by lamplight of early evenfall. Through gold-bowed glasses she squinted—glasses with immensely heavy lenses that oddly magnified her eyes. ”

“ The old housekeeper's eyes grew penetrant through their heavy lenses.
“Just what did that man say, Irene? What was it all about?”
“Oh, I don't hardly know, ma'am—somethin' about some place in Africa, an' a boat, an' some colored people attackin' it, an' a daughter—a lost daughter. Miss Grush, is that the little gal he lost—the one he's got the paintin' of, that hangs over the fireplace?”
“There, there, Irene! You talk too much, you do. Stand still, can't you? Why, my land, you jump around like a flea on a bear!” Miss Grush tried to be casual, but her voice had taken a sudden quaver. ”