Chapter 13

There was something of the precision of clockwork in matters and things at Hilcrest. A large corps of well-trained servants in charge of an excellent housekeeper left Mrs. Merideth free to go, and come, and entertain as she liked. For fifteen years now she had been mistress of Hilcrest, ever since her mother had died, in fact. Widowed herself at twenty-two after a year of married life, and the only daughter in a family of four children, she had been like a second mother to her two younger brothers. Harry, the eldest brother, had early left the home roof to study medicine. Frank, barely twenty when his brother Harry lost his life, had even then pleased his father by electing the mills as his life-work. And now, five years after that father’s death, Ned was sharing his brother Frank’s care and responsibility in keeping the great wheels turning and the great chimneys smoking in the town below.

Della Merideth was essentially a woman who liked—and who usually obtained—the strawberries and cream of life. Always accustomed to luxury, she demanded as a matter of course rich clothing and dainty food. That there were people in the world whose clothing was coarse and whose food was scanty, she well knew; and knowing this she was careful that her donations to the Home Missionary Society and the Woman’s Guild were prompt and liberal. Beyond this her duty did not extend, she was sure. As for any personal interest in the recipients of her alms, she had none whatever; and would, indeed, have deemed it both unnecessary and unladylike that she should have had such interest. Her eyes were always on the hills and meadows on the west side of the house, and even her way to and from Hilcrest was carefully planned so that she might avoid so far as was possible, the narrow, ill-smelling streets of the town on the other side of the hill.