y the old hotel rang with the blows of hammer and the rasp of
saw, in preparation for its new birth in September, as the Union
Settlement House. There came often, in the late afternoons, the Rev.
George Dayne, the tireless and kind-faced Secretary of Charities, who
wandered whistling over the lower floor, while his mind's eye saw,
beyond the litter of boards and brick and demolished partitions, the
emerging visage of a great institution. And Mr. Dayne rarely failed to
climb the stairs for a little chat with the young man in the polished
coat who, under promise of secrecy, had called these wonders into being.

More regular were the visits of Hon. Samuel O'Neill, desirous of
talking over the state of the Union, particularly as touching the new
advanced labor law he was now beginning to draft--"stiffest factory
legislation ever passed in the South." And sometimes, when the condition
of the sick permitted it, these two would slip away from the Dabney
House for a welcome swim, with a growing swarm of boys behind; for
Vivian had been the best swimmer on the river in his day, and still did
things from the springboard which many lads with two sound feet could
not copy. So diversion from the medical grind was not wanting. And once
in June, the doctor lunched with Mr. Dayne at Berringer's, and twice he
was dragged off to supper at the Cooneys' and enjoyed himself very much,
and once he took Sunday dinner with his aunt, Mrs. Mason, and his little
Mason cousins: only that time he was called away from the table before
dessert, and got back to South Street just a minute before Mrs.
Meeghan died....

The Garlands rarely saw their boarder now except at mealtimes, and by no
means always then. Kern, for her part, was off to the Works at quarter
to seven each morning, and had stopped coming home for dinner since the
heat got so bad. However, the women observed him, and talked him over of
nights as they washed the dishes in the new detached kitchen. For the
Garland _menage_ boasted this moderate convenience now, directly
attributable to the remarkable growth of Receipts (voluntary) which had
reached $21.75 by the book for the single month of June. It was agreed
that Mr. V.V. was not so jokey at the supper-table as formerly, and
looked po'ly, in fine, and no wonder, the heat and all, and the way he
let Hazens and Epsteins roust him out of bed in the middle of his sleep.

Kern deplored the doctor's thinness, and hardly less, in her secret