Let me show you.' She took a potato and the knife, and began to scrape off the skin. 'Oh, thank you,' breathed the miniature painter. 'I didn't know. And I did hate to see the thick peel go; it seemed such a waste. But I thought you always had to peel potatoes. When you've only got potatoes to eat, the peel is important, you know.'
'So you're out of luck too,' said Hetty. The miniature artist smiled sadly. 'Yes, I am. Art-or at lest my art-isn't selling very well.I have only these potatoes for my dinner. But they aren't too bad, hot, with a little butter and salt.' 'Child,' said Hetty , and for a moment, a smile touched her hard, tight face. 'What a good thing we met. I'm poor too, and out of luck ; but I've got a big-piece of beef in my room-but on potatoes. Let's share our food, and make it into a stew. We'll cook it in my room. If only we had an onion to put in it!... Say, you haven't got a cent or two in an old coat-pocket, have you? We could buy an onion with that.'
'You may call me Cecilia,' said the miniature painter. 'No, I spent my last cent three days ago.'
'Then we'll have to do without the onion. But I wish we had one.' In Hetty 's room the two began to prepare their supper. Cecilia sat and begged Hetty to let her help. Hetty prepared the beef and put it in cold salt water in the stew-pan on the small gas stove. 'I wish we had an onion,' said Hetty again as she cut up the potatoes.