heaven, to-night he'd throw all that stinking stuff away!

Outside the day was immaculate, the expanse of the water was like
celestial silk, such sails as he saw resembled white clouds. The early
morning bird song had subsided, but a persistent robin was whistling from
the grass by the open door. The curd-like petals of a magnolia were
slowly shifting obliquely to the ground, he could hear the stir of Derby
Street. He was inexpressibly weary of the struggle always racking his
being: it seemed to him that in the midst of a serene world he was
tormented by some inimicable and fatal power.

He fastened his thoughts on commonplace happier objects, on the page
under his hand, the entries of Medford rum and sugar cane and molasses,
and the infinitely larger affairs of Ammidon, Ammidon and Saltonstone.
There was no reason why he shouldn't call on Jeremy Ammidon's family. The
latter had signified by his visit the desire to end the misunderstanding
between them. He was as well born as Gerrit Ammidon; only ill chance had
made them seem differently situated. Anyhow, unlike Canton, mere exterior
position had comparatively little weight in Salem. The shipmasters, the
more important merchants, arrogated a certain superiority to themselves:
but it broke down before the inborn democracy of the local spirit.

That afternoon, he decided, he'd be in Pleasant Street; and later he
dressed with the most meticulous care. A growing doubt seized him as he
mounted the outside steps of the Ammidons' impressive house; but he
crushed it down and firmly rapped with the polished knocker on the
opened door.

The family, a servant told him, was in the garden; and he followed
through a large white-paneled hall into a formal drawing-room and green