"It looks to me, Anna," she said, "as if by borrowing everything I had
George had bought me, body and soul, for the rest of my natural life. I'll
stay now until Sidney is able to take hold. Then I'm going to live my own
life. It will be a little late, but the Kennedys live a long time."

The day of Harriet's leaving had seemed far away to Anna Page. Sidney was
still her baby, a pretty, rather leggy girl, in her first year at the High
School, prone to saunter home with three or four knickerbockered boys in
her train, reading "The Duchess" stealthily, and begging for longer
dresses. She had given up her dolls, but she still made clothes for them
out of scraps from Harriet's sewing-room. In the parlance of the Street,
Harriet "sewed"--and sewed well.

She had taken Anna into business with her, but the burden of the
partnership had always been on Harriet. To give her credit, she had not
complained. She was past forty by that time, and her youth had slipped by
in that back room with its dingy wallpaper covered with paper patterns.

On the day after the arrival of the roomer, Harriet Kennedy came down to
breakfast a little late. Katie, the general housework girl, had tied a
small white apron over her generous gingham one, and was serving breakfast.
From the kitchen came the dump of an iron, and cheerful singing. Sidney
was ironing napkins. Mrs. Page, who had taken advantage of Harriet's
tardiness to read the obituary column in the morning paper, dropped it.

But Harriet did not sit down. It was her custom to jerk her chair out and
drop into it, as if she grudged every hour spent on food. Sidney, not
hearing the jerk, paused with her iron in air.

"Sidney."