Aunt Lois visited the children to make sure “Harry was doing something about them.” She demanded of her mother what these women did for a living, a query much resented by Grandma who coldly explained that they were women bereaved by law or death of their husbands, too high-class to take employment or to let themselves go to seed in some hick town like London Junction. Aunt Lois wanted to know if and how Mrs. B. or Mrs. M. paid their board, to which Grandma indignantly replied that both ladies received registered letters every few weeks, indicating to any idiot that they had property somewhere, or an income coming in somehow.

“Do they pay you?” Aunt Lois relentlessly insisted. “Do you see any of this big income?”

Grandma said that in Cleveland you did not do business that way. In Cleveland you didn’t ding and ding at high-class people (like Mrs. M. and Mrs. B.) whose status was established; you gave credit. Otherwise, as Mrs. Carmel herself would tell you, you lost your customers. Grandma suggested that her daughter go to Mr. Sweeney for corroboration of this statement, since Mr. Sweeney was the only man in London Junction with a grain of sense. Growing heated, Grandma added that she was on her own now, an independent woman at last, thank God, and she wouldn’t take any criticism from any child of hers, because if such a child was so darned smart, why hadn’t she known how to hang on to a husband? Aunt Lois flushed and changed the subject to her late sister’s husband. Did Harry tell her what he planned for the children and did he send her any money for their keep? Did he get them the shoes they needed? Did he stay with them when he was in Cleveland or did he hang around the Eugenia Candy Company as usual all day with Ed Hartwell? Grandma said that Harry was more like a son to her than any of her own blood. It was a pleasure to have him in the house and Mr. Hartwell, too, a true gentleman who did her the honor of taking a room when Harry was in town, as they were devoted friends, and a finer man never breathed, except possibly Mr. Sweeney.

“Mrs. Reed,” Mr. Hartwell had said, gravely shaking her hands only a few evenings ago on coming in rather late, “I apologize from the bottom of my heart for my condition. I can promise you as a gentleman to a lady and a mother, God bless her, that you will never see me in this shape again.”

“So he was drunk,” said Aunt Lois, with satisfaction. “Harry too, of course. No respect for poor Daisy, not dead a year. I wish they’d both walk in right now. I’d give them a piece of my mind.”

Not ten minutes later her brother-in-law actually did walk in, bearing white silk scarfs for his daughters, and accompanied by his friend Hartwell, both in a praiseworthy state of grave sobriety. This put Aunt Lois out of countenance. Grandma went on knitting a green hug-me-tight for Mrs. M., hiding a demure smile as Mr. Hartwell turned his masculine charm on Aunt Lois. There was no use denying that Papa’s friend made a good appearance, with his broad shoulders, square jaw, and big white teeth, carefully oiled brown wavy hair and large Masonic diamond ring. He wore his red pin-dot tie knotted in the latest style, bulging the exact degree out above his vest and secured with a conservative onyx pin rimmed with chip diamonds. His collar and cuffs were stiff and snowy, though no whiter than Papa’s, Marcia jealously noted, and from the way his watch chain, hung with an elk’s tooth, lay across his vest, Mr. Hartwell was on his way to acquiring a breadbasket as distinguished as Mr. Sweeney’s. Papa was proud of his friend’s elegant appearance but particularly proud of his rich fruity baritone. He watched admiringly the effect of this magic sound on Aunt Lois, for she could not disguise her pleasure in its resonant flattery.