Puritan cap. Seeing a stranger, she made an ejaculation and drew back hastily. Stephen called out to her:

‘Don’t be afraid, little girl! Will you kindly tell me who lives here?’ The answer came with some hesitation:

‘Sister Ruth.’

‘And who is Sister Ruth?’ The question came instinctively and without premeditation. The maid, embarrassed, held hard to the half- open door and shifted from foot to foot uneasily.

‘I don’t know!’ she said at last. ‘Only Sister Ruth, I suppose!’ It was manifest that the matter had never afforded her anything in the nature of a problem. There was an embarrassing silence. Stephen did not wish to seem, or even to be, prying;