gathered, and which, alienated then for so long a period, had, through
the successive deaths of his two brothers and the termination of old
arrangements, come wholly into his hands. He was the owner of another,
not quite so "good"--the jolly corner having been, from far back,
superlatively extended and consecrated; and the value of the pair
represented his main capital, with an income consisting, in these later
years, of their respective rents which (thanks precisely to their
original excellent type) had never been depressingly low. He could live
in "Europe," as he had been in the habit of living, on the product of
these flourishing New York leases, and all the better since, that of the
second structure, the mere number in its long row, having within a
twelvemonth fallen in, renovation at a high advance had proved
beautifully possible.

These were items of property indeed, but he had found himself since his
arrival distinguishing more than ever between them. The house within the
street, two bristling blocks westward, was already in course of
reconstruction as a tall mass of flats; he had acceded, some time before,
to overtures for this conversion--in which, now that it was going
forward, it had been not the least of his astonishments to find himself
able, on the spot, and though without a previous ounce of such
experience, to participate with a certain intelligence, almost with a
certain authority. He had lived his life with his back so turned to such
concerns and his face addressed to those of so different an order that he
scarce knew what to make of this lively stir, in a compartment of his
mind never yet penetrated, of a capacity for business and a sense for
construction. These virtues, so common all round him now, had been
dormant in his own organism--where it might be said of them perhaps that
they had slept the sleep of the just. At present, in the splendid autumn
weather--the autumn at least was a pure boon in the terrible place--he