"
Mrs. Ellsworth turned cold.
"What do you mean?" she gasped.
"Ralph," sternly demanded his father, "you don't mean to tell us that
you let the Van Kamps jockey us out of those rooms after all?"
"Indeed, no," he airily responded. "Just come right on up and see."
He led the way into the suite and struck a match. One solitary candle
had been left upon the mantel shelf. Ralph thought that this had been
overlooked, but his mother afterwards set him right about that. Mrs.
Van Kamp had cleverly left it so that the Ellsworths could see how
dreadfully bare the place was. One candle in three rooms is drearier
than darkness anyhow.
Mrs. Ellsworth took in all the desolation, the dismal expanse of the
now enormous apartments, the shabby walls, the hideous bright spots
where pictures had hung, the splintered flooring, the great, gaunt
windows--and she gave in. She had met with snub after snub, and cut
after cut, in her social climb, she had had the cook quit in the
middle of an important dinner, she had had every disconcerting thing
possible happen to her, but this--this was the last _bale_ of straw.
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