What Luck! A Study in Opposites & Surprise House

Excerpt: “Side by side on the crowded waiting bench of the Infirmary sat two women, each with a child at her elbow, who had been eyeing one another furtively. They were silently criticizing in different languages. “Her mourning must have cost much money!” thought Mrs. Rogazrovitch, enviously, looking down at her own painful saffron coat. “Cielo! What a terrible hat!” mused the other woman, considering the purple velvet creation that crowned the frowzy locks of her neighbor. “She can have no care to hold the love of her husband!” And she wiped a tear with her black-bordered handkerchief. The eyes of little Stephanie, who stood at the knee of Mrs. Rogazrovitch, were red and swollen; but not with weeping. Even the subdued light of the waiting-room made her squint horribly, and she kept her eyes turned from the window. This brought in direct line her neighbor, the pale, emaciated little boy at the other woman’s side. Stephanie was five; the boy seemed older. He hung his head and never looked up. Stephanie was ready to make friends, for she had grown tired of the long wait, but Paolo’s mother was in the way. She was continually bending over the boy, smoothing his hair or kissing his forehead, in what seemed to Stephanie a very silly fashion. Stephanie’s mother never kissed her at all. Gradually Stephanie edged nearer. “Hello!” she said in a stage whisper suited to the solemn occasion. “Is your eyes sick, too?” The boy stared, gave a blinking glance from big, brown eyes, and nodded."