What is the meaning of "Sofronie" in "The Gift of the Magi"?When Della goes to sell her hair, O. Henry writes that: "Madame, large too white,...

When O. Henry writes that "Madame, large, too white,
chilly, hardly looked the 'Sofronie," he is suggesting that this woman is using a false
name in order to make herself sound foreign, aristocratic, and exotic. She hopes to be
taken for an artiste because her customers naturally want wigs and
toupees that will look realistic and becoming. The words "too white" suggest that she is
not from some such foreign land as Romania, Greece, or Turkey, where more swarthy
complexions are common, but, as her speech proves to the reader if not to Della, that
she is probably of pure Irish descent and may have been born in Ireland or right across
the river in Brooklyn. Madame Sofronie may affect some sort of foreign accent when she
is talking to a customer, but she does not have to put on any airs with needy women like
Della who come to sell their hair. The word "chilly" in O. Henry's description is not
intended to suggest that the woman feels cold but that she that her manner is
unfriendly. People who have to deal with small shopkeepers will often observe that there
is a big difference between the receptions they get if they are buyers and those they
get if they are there to sell them something such as merchandise, stationery,
advertising, or insurance. It is as if many of these shopkeepers get so fed up with
having to smile at their customers that they have to spew some of their ill will on the
occasional drop-in who wants something from them. This dramatic
difference in attitude is also observable by a person who buys something and then later
tries to return it for a refund.

This is the line of
Madame's dialogue that gives her away to the intelligent
reader:

"Take
yer hat off and let's have a sight at the looks of
it."

Madame Sofronie speaks
pure Brooklynese.