Two children stood outside the door with old coats. "Any old papers, Lady?" asked one of them. I was busy. I wanted to say no, but I saw that their shoes were broken and wet. "Come in and I'll make you a cup of hot tea." They came in, saying nothing. Their shoes left snow on the floor. I gave them tea and bread to protect them against the cold outside. Then I went back to the kitchen and started my housework again. The silence in the front room surprised me. I looked in. The girl held the empty cup in her hands, looking at it. The boy asked me in a low voice, "Lady, are you rich?" Am I rich? Oh, no! I looked at my old things in my room. The girl put her cup back in its saucer  carefully. "Your cups match your saucers." They left then, holding their papers against the wind. They hadn't said thank you. They didn't need to. They had done more than that. The blue cups and saucers were simple. But they said that they matched. The potatoes and meat before me, a roof over our hands, my husband with a job--these things matched, too. I moved the chairs back from the fire and cleaned the living room. The prints of their small shoes were still wet on my floor. I let them be. I wanted them there to remind me how rich I was. The writer let the two children in   _  .
to offer them some warm clothes to serve them tea and food to sell them some old papers to show them how rich she was.