COMMUTER'S WIFE 55 



fresh complexion and wide-open though expression- 

 less clear blue eyes, the latter. He was dressed 

 in typical ill-fitting shabby store clothes, but his 

 stout square boots and cap with a peaked visor 

 were evidently of foreign make. 



Behind him was a woman a full head taller, thin, 

 long-armed, and bent about the shoulders. She 

 had dark hair and eyes, with the complexion and 

 the flat features which, when they appear in people 

 of the north countries of Europe, give either the 

 appearance of sadness or sulkiness. This woman's 

 expression was compounded of both. She did not 

 speak, but pulled her shawl together and stooped 

 to chide a little tow-haired boy of five or six who 

 was tugging at her hand. Behind the woman in 

 turn followed two girls of ten and twelve, swarthy 

 and flat featured as their mother, like whom they 

 were dressed in a clumsy way that had withal a 

 certain peasant picturesqueness. 



While I was talking to the man, a small one-horse 

 wagon, of the pattern used by vegetable venders 

 in the town, rounded the corner ; in it were a few 

 very plain articles of household furniture, a large 

 bundle, doubtless containing the family feather bed, 

 and several small parcels neatly tied. 



This was Peter Schmidt, his family, and posses- 



