If Broadway had dominated the social scene for generations, the upstart Fifth Avenue was bidding for prominence now. And though fashionable Central Park was still waiting for the city to reach it, isolated mansions on Fifth were already getting close.

The first house of note, seven streets down from the park, was a palatial mansion nearing completion on an empty site. “That’s Madame Restell’s,” Gretchen remarked. “Doesn’t she live fine?” Having made a fortune with her husband procuring abortions for the good people of the city, Madame Restell had recently decided to build herself a house on Fifth where she could enjoy her retirement in state. And if Mary looked at that house with some horror, it was only another block before she reverently crossed herself.

Fifth at Fiftieth. St. Patrick’s Cathedral. A decade had passed since Cardinal Hughes had laid the cornerstone of the great church which the city’s huge new population of Irish Catholics so obviously deserved. And there was no doubt about its message. If Trinity’s claims on the Gothic style had seemed impressive for a while, the vast new Catholic cathedral rising on Fifth would put the Protestant Episcopalians in their place—and provide a mighty reminder that honor was due to the Irish Catholics too.

Mary was proud of St. Patrick’s. Increasingly, as time went by, the Church had been a comfort to her. The religion of her childhood, and of her people. At least you knew that it would always be there. She went to Mass every Sunday, confessing her few, small sins to a priest who gave her kindly dispensation and renewal of life. She prayed in the chapel, where the shadows comprehended all human tears, the candles promised love, and the silence, she knew, was the stillness of the eternal Church. With this spiritual nourishment her life was, almost, complete.

They swept on down Fifth, past the orphanage for poor Negro children at Forty-third, past the fortress-like splendor of the reservoir, all the way down to Union Square, where they picked up the Bowery.

“Have you guessed where we’re going?” asked Gretchen.