Lily Cardew inspected curiously the east side neighborhood
through which the taxi was passing. She knew
vaguely that she was in the vicinity of one of the
Cardew mills, but she had never visited any of the
Cardew plants. She had never been permitted to
do so. Perhaps the neighborhood would have impressed
her more had she not seen, in the camp, that life
can be stripped sometimes to its essentials, and still
have lost very little. But the dinginess depressed
her. Smoke was in the atmosphere, like a heavy
fog. Soot lay on the window-sills, and mingled
with street dust to form little black whirlpools in
the wind. Even the white river steamers, guiding
their heavy laden coal barges with the current, were
gray with soft coal smoke. The foam of the river
falling in broken cataracts from their stern wheels
was oddly white in contrast.
Everywhere she began to see her own name. “Cardew”
was on the ore hopper cars that were moving slowly
along a railroad spur. One of the steamers bore
“Anthony Cardew” in tall black letters
on its side. There was a narrow street called
“Cardew Way.”
Aunt Elinor lived on Cardew Way. She wondered
if Aunt Elinor found that curious, as she did.
Did she resent these ever-present reminders of her
lost family? Did she have any bitterness because
the very grayness of her skies was making her hard
old father richer and more powerful?
Yet there was comfort, stability and a certain dignity
about Aunt Elinor’s house when she reached it.
It stood in the district, but not of it, withdrawn
from the street in a small open space which gave indication
of being a flower garden in summer. There were
two large gaunt trees on either side of a brick walk,
and that walk had been swept to the last degree of
neatness. The steps were freshly scoured, and
a small brass door-plate, like a doctor’s sign,
was as bright as rubbing could make it. “James
Doyle,” she read.
Suddenly she was glad she had come. The little
brick house looked anything but tragic, with its shining
windows, its white curtains and its evenly drawn shades.
Through the windows on the right came a flickering
light, warm and rosy. There must be a coal fire
there. She loved a coal fire.
She had braced herself to meet Aunt Elinor at the
door, but an elderly woman opened it.
“Mrs. Doyle is in,” she said; “just
step inside.”
She did not ask Lily’s name, but left her in
the dark little hall and creaked up the stairs.
Lily hesitated. Then, feeling that Aunt Elinor
might not like to find her so unceremoniously received,
she pushed open a door which was only partly closed,
and made a step into the room. Only then did
she see that it was occupied. A man sat by the
fire, reading. He was holding his book low, to
get the light from the fire, and he turned slowly
to glance at Lily. He had clearly expected some
one else. Elinor, probably.
