The Fruit of the Tree

y Mrs. Truscomb, a large flushed woman

He ought not to see you. Th

room. He was a pale man, with a beard of mixed grey-a

As he seems anxious to see you I think you'd better go up for two minutes--not more, please."

Dillon," Mrs. Truscomb interposed, draping her

work. But we'll have Dillon all right bef

re her husband lay, a prey to the cares of office. She ushered the young man in, and withdrew to the n

, he seemed at first glance to belong to the innumerable army of American business men--the sallow, undersized, lacklustre drudges who have never lifted their heads from the ledger. Even hi

rst. I'm down with

t," the young man fo

asped. "I've just heard that Mrs. Westmore is here--and I want y

id Amherst, hi

him what the doctor says--I'll be on my legs in a day or

d up a bony hand. "Wait a minute. On your way there, stop and

d at that moment Mrs. Trusco

he began haughtily; but a glance from her hu

ou've been in to Hanaford.

e murmured: he l

said

ler and dryer. He transferred his l

s business to report Dillon's case to Mrs. Westmore? Yo

" Amherst answered, as he tu

*

tmore mansion. One of the four, the young lady in widow's weeds whose face had arrested Miss Brent's attention t

eaning despondently against the high carved mantelpiece

crossed on the other, and his ebony stick reposing against th

ve wave of his hand, "I find it positively intere

d their lights impartially on ponderously framed canvases of the Bay of Naples a

rare as the giant sequoias. In another fifty years we

ntly. When she felt deeply on any subj

g herself beside the other lady of the p

pty cup to her pen. Being habitually charged with a voluminous correspondence, she had foreseen this contingency and met it by despatching her maid for her own wr

r: now kindling with irony, now gently maternal, now charged with abstract meditation--and few paus

about the room. "But you are a spoilt child to complain. Think of having a ho

on was arrested by the

expect me to come here _now_--could they, Mr. Tredegar?" she exc

up and down the room with short pompous steps, a cigar between his lips, and his arms behind him. He cocked his sparrow-like

ed axiomatically, "how lar

w: his lightest observation seemed a decision handed down from the bench to which he had never

emember," the older lady murmured, as i

perfectly satisfied." Her voice trembled a little on her husband's name. "And yo

now, dear," Mrs. Ansell reminded

way widows' veils are worn in New York this autumn?' and Halford will insist

had reverted to her argument. "Besides, what difference would my coming h

"The necessity has never arisen. But now that you find

rself, Bessy. Bring your masterly intel

se, and laid her arm with a caressing gesture on Mrs. Westmore's

orrow morning," exclaimed t

eaten two boiled eggs and a bowl of po

o her feet, but the widow refused to

l from the shelter of Mrs. Ansell's embrace; "but I know one thing: If I had my way I should begin to

ruck him as business-like when they did not affect his ow

. "From the point of view of policy, I t

lly, it's too late to look so far into the future. Rememb

stening Mrs. Westmore's withdrawal, and the two ladies, af

was the fir

Tredegar. Why the deuce Westmore left her everythin

t's a wonder there was anything to leave

interests, I've a

ould see that we mean to look into everything thoroughly. Of course Halford Gaines will never be more than a good figure

ghope assented, his light smile stiffen

l turn in myself. There's not a readable book in that God-forsaken li

*

nd ask for Mr. Langhope only. The decision had cost him a struggle, for his heart was big with its purpose; but though he knew that he mu

told him, had been in the previous evening, and had told her to take heart about Jim, and left her enough money to get along for a week--and a wonderful new cough-mixture that he'd put up for her special. Am

factory door; but another voice argued that he had no right to accuse Disbrow of acting as his brothe

Well, perhaps he's an incurable optimist," h

fully-brushed Sunday clothes, and adjusted his tie with skilful fingers. "You'd really be handsome, Johnny, if you were only a little vainer," she said, pushing him away to survey the result; and when he stared at her, repeating: "I never heard that vanity made a man bette

"but as I've been forbidden to ask for he

nd there, to his surprise, he found, not the white-moustached gentleman whom he had guessed the night befo

e had been so free from tiresome obligations that she had but a small stock of patience to meet them with; and already, after a night at Hanaford, she was pining to get back to the comforts of her own country-house, the

puzzled at the unannounced appearance of a good-looking young man who might have been some one she had met and forgotten, while Amherst felt his self-possession

confirming the inference she had drawn from his appearance, replied with a smile: "I am Mrs. Westmore. But if you have come to see me, I

lly waiting for him to

-your assistant manager," he added, as the mentio

ed Amherst's mother if she could have heard it; but it had an opposite effect on the young man, who i

dn't expect Mr. Truscomb here," his employer faltered

ills today. I didn't mean to ask for you--I was told to give the message to Mr. Langhope

had never seen such hair--it did not seem to grow in the usual orderly way, but bubbled up all over her head in independent clusters of brightness, breaking, about the brow, the temples, the nape, into little irrelevant waves and eddies of light, with dusky ho

vague accent of relief, as Mr. Langhope's sti

misled as herself, and gave her a sense of being agreeably justified in her blunder. "If _father_ thinks you're a gent

vaguely; and it became clear that neither Mrs. Westmore nor her

timent to the larger feelings with which he had entered the house, Mrs. Ansell, turning her eyes on him, said gen

nius; and my mother is Lucy Warne," he said,

udge Warne?" she said, turning to Mr. Langhope, who, twirling his white moustache, mu

nsell's voice and smile; and he only asked himself vaguely if it were possible that this graceful woman, with her sun

n share in the hardships his mother had endured; and when Mrs. Ansell went on: "I must go and see her--

ly took for a mere social awkwardness, while Mrs. Westmore interposed: "But, Mari

ed. He too was already beginning to chafe at the uncongenial exile of Hanaford,

rst had been named to him, and had received his Ol

think he can take us over the mills

sure he can't. He has

nsell saved the situation by breathing feelingly: "Poor man!" and after a decent echo of the phrase, and a doubtful gla

sighed "Oh, that dreadful journey!" Mr. Tredegar interposed with authority: "On

ve they know

York without showing yourself would, under th

ect to keep us kicking our heels he

fraction of a day," rejoined the lawyer, always acutely resentful o

heek, "don't you see that the only thing for us to do

led on to remake them. "Eh--what? Now--at once? But Gaines was to have gone with us, and how on earth

daughter urged. "We can see the mills just as well w

argument; and Bessy, clasping her hands, summed up enthusiastically: "And I shall

pert as she was in the interpreting of tones, set it down to the

she said to Amherst, with a smile intended to co

people, unhampered by Truscomb's jealous vigilance, and Truscomb's false explanations; to see the angel of pity stir the depths of those unfathomable eyes, when they rested, perhaps for the first time, on suffering that it was in thei