l roar, with now and then vast undertones like the rumbling of
a cathedral pipe-organ. Emma knew that the high, clear tenor note was
the shrill cry of the lame "newsie" at the corner of Sixth Avenue and
Twenty-sixth Street. Those deep, thunderous bass notes were the
combined reverberation of nearby "L" trains, distant subway and
clanging surface cars. That sharp staccato was a motorman clanging his
bell of warning. These things she knew. But she liked, nevertheless,
to shut her eyes for a moment in the midst of her busy day and listen
to the chant of the city as it came up to her, subdued, softened,
strangely beautified. The sound saddened even while it filled her with
a certain exaltation. We have no one word for that sensation. The
German (there's a language!) has it--Weltschmerz.

As distance softened the harsh sounds to her ears, so time and
experience had given her a perspective on life itself. She saw it, not
as a series of incidents, pleasant and unpleasant, but as a great
universal scheme too mighty to comprehend--a scheme that always worked
itself out in some miraculous way.

She had had a singularly full life, had Emma McChesney Buck. A life
replete with work, leavened by sorrows, sweetened with happiness.
These ingredients make for tolerance. She saw, for example, how the
capable, modern staff in the main business office had forged ahead of
old Pop Henderson. Pop Henderson had been head bookkeeper for years.
But the pen in his trembling hand made queer spidery marks in the
ledgers now, and his figure seven was very likely to look like a
drunken letter "z." The great bulk of his work was done by the
capable, comely Miss Kelly who could juggle figures like a Cinquevalli.
His shaking, blue-veined yellow hand was no match for Miss Kelly's
cool, firm fingers. But he stayed on at Buck's, and no one dreamed of
insulting him with talk of a pension, least of all Emma. She saw the
work-worn pathetic old man not only as a figure but as a symbol.

Jock McChesney, very young, very handsome, very successful, coming on
to New York from Chicago to be married in June, found his mother
wrapped in this contemplative calm. Now, Emma McChesney Buck, mother
of an about-to-be-married son, was also surprisingly young and
astonishingly handsome and highly successful. Jock, in a lucid moment
the day before his wedding, took occasion to comment rather resentfully
on his mother's attitude.

"It seems to me," he said