crossing the end of it. The only token of the existence of the
Elevated Railroad was a remote occasional hum suggestive of the
flying past of a giant bee. The thing seemed no longer a roaring
demon, and Judith scarcely recognized that it was still the
centre of the city's rushing, heated life.

The owners of the house had evidently deserted it suddenly. The
windows had not been boarded up and the rooms had been left in
their ordinary condition. The furniture was not covered or the
hangings swathed. Jem Foster had been told that his wife must put
things in order.

The house was beautiful and spacious, its decorations and
appointments were not mere testimonies to freedom of expenditure,
but expressions of a dignified and cultivated thought. Judith
followed her mother from room to room in one of her singular
moods. The loftiness of the walls, the breadth and space about
her made her, at intervals, draw in her breath with pleasure. The
pictures, the colours, the rich and beautiful textures she saw
brought to her the free--and at the same time soothed--feeling
she remembered as the chief feature of the dreams in which she
"fell awake." But beyond all other things she rejoiced in the
height and space, the sweep of view through one large room into
another. She continually paused and stood with her face lifted
looking up at the pictured things floating on a ceiling above
her. Once, when she had stood doing this long enough to forget
herself, she was startled by her mother's laugh, which broke in
upon the silence about them with a curiously earthly sound which
was almost a shock.