erwood mount the front steps of
his handsome residence in his neat gray suit and well-cut overcoat on
his return from his office that evening, that he was thinking that this
might be his last night here. His air and walk indicated no weakening
of spirit. He entered the hall, where an early lamp was aglow, and
encountered "Wash" Sims, an old negro factotum, who was just coming up
from the basement, carrying a bucket of coal for one of the fireplaces.

"Mahty cold out, dis evenin', Mistah Coppahwood," said Wash, to whom
anything less than sixty degrees was very cold. His one regret was that
Philadelphia was not located in North Carolina, from whence he came.

"'Tis sharp, Wash," replied Cowperwood, absentmindedly. He was thinking
for the moment of the house and how it had looked, as he came toward it
west along Girard Avenue--what the neighbors were thinking of him, too,
observing him from time to time out of their windows. It was clear and
cold. The lamps in the reception-hall and sitting-room had been lit, for
he had permitted no air of funereal gloom to settle down over this
place since his troubles had begun. In the far west of the street a last
tingling gleam of lavender and violet was showing over the cold white
snow of the roadway. The house of gray-green stone, with its lighted
windows, and cream-colored lace curtains, had looked especially
attractive. He had thought for the moment of the pride he had taken in
putting all this here, decorating and ornamenting it, and whether, ever,
he could secure it for himself again. "Where is your mistress?" he added
to Wash, when he bethought himself.

"In the sitting-room, Mr. Coppahwood, ah think."

Cowperwood ascended the stairs, thinking curiously that Wash would soon
be out of a job now, unless Mrs. Cowperwood, out of all the wreck of
other things, chose to retain him, which was not likely. He entered the
sitting-room, and there sat his wife by the oblong center-table, sewing
a hook and eye on one of Lillian, second's, petticoats. She looked
up, at his step, with the peculiarly uncertain smile she used these
days--indication of her pain, fear, suspicion--and inquired, "Well, what
is new with you, Frank?" Her smile was something like a hat or belt or
ornament which one puts on or off at will.

"Nothing in particular," he replied, in his offhand way, "except that I
understand I have lost that appeal of mine. Steger is coming here in
a little while to let me know. I had