blue-flecked sky and the grey houses that stood around the gardens like
beasts about a water-pool. The sun (a red disc) peered over their
shoulders. He went, with his mother within doors. Instantly on his
entrance the house began to rustle and whisper.


II

Mrs. Slater, although an amiable and kind-hearted human being who
believed with confident superstition in a God of other people's making,
did not, on the whole, welcome her lady friends with much cordiality. It
was not, as she often explained, as though she had her own house into
which to ask them. Her motto was, "Friendly with All, Familiar with
None," and to this she very faithfully held. But in her heart there was
reason enough for this caution; there had been days--yes, and nights
too--when, during her lamented husband's lifetime, she had "taken a
drop," taken it, obviously enough, as a comfort, and a solace when
things were going very hard with her, and "'Enery preferrin' 'er to be
jolly 'erself to keep 'im company." She had protested, but Fate and
Henry had been too strong for her. "She had fallen into the habit!"
Then, when No. 21 had come under her care, she had put it all sternly
behind her, but one did not know how weak one might be, and a kindly
friend might with her persuasion----

Therefore did Mrs. Slater avoid her kindly friends. There was, however,
one friend who was not so readily to be avoided; that was Mrs. Carter.
Mrs. Carter also was a widow, or rather, to speak the direct truth, had
discovered one morning, twenty years ago, that Mr. Carter "was gone"; he
had never returned. Those who knew Mrs. Carter intimately said that, on
the whole, "things bein' as they was," his departure was not entirely to