Chapter 16 Summary and Analysis

Russell brings home Miriam Emily Nash, known as Mimi. She is not the "good woman" Lucy wants for her son. She wears makeup, lives alone, drinks, has a tenth-grade education, and works at a department store makeup counter. She is too beautiful, and Russell is jealous. Once, he sees her kissing someone at a party and has a fit. She throws back that he's the one who doesn't want to get married.

Mimi's mother is epileptic, and her father is an angry alcoholic. Mimi winds up in an orphanage, the Sheltering Arms. Mimi quickly sickens of the fundamentalist Protestant matron who forces the children to attend faith healings and takes the best donated sweets before giving the rest to the children, as well as the community organizations that expect the orphans to appear at Christmas party expressing gratitude for once-a-year gifts...