“Do you suppose there is another house in New York as splendid as this one?” asked Beth overcome by the wonders displayed to her. “Oh, yes; finer,” said Natalie. “But there are a good many not so fine.” “I don’t see, Natalie, how you can ever be good enough,” said Beth solemnly. Alys laughed, but Natalie said: “Sometimes I feel that, too, Beth. I hope I can use it all as I ought. Mama tries to have us remember we’ve got to do a great deal more than just enjoy our wealth. It is hard not to forget, and take it all just as Jack Horner took the plum.” “Off in a corner and thinking how good he was!” cried Beth quickly. “You won’t be that kind, Natalie!” “Do you like my house, Beth?” asked Mr. Cortlandt when Beth came alone into the library after her tour to find him, sitting with a book laid face upon his knee, looking into the fire. “It is like Jerusalem the Golden,” said Beth seriously. “‘I know not, oh, I know not what joys await me there.’ There’s no palace in all the stories I ever read half so wonderful, Uncle Jim! I can’t think I’m really seeing.” “You look like your mother, Beth,” said her uncle unexpectedly, as he watched the earnest little face. “No one ever told me about her, Uncle Jim,” said Beth coming over to perch on his knee as a matter of course. “Will you tell me about her, please? It would be nice for Sunday night.” “There are two lines of Jean Ingelow’s that I always think of when I think of her,” said Uncle Jim. “‘A sweeter, woman ne’er drew breath Than my son’s wife, Elizabeth.’ Only she was my sister and not an Elizabeth. Do you like Sunday night, little Beth?” asked her uncle stroking her soft cheek. “Oh, yes,” said Beth. “I think Sunday is like an island day, with all the other days rolling around it, like waves, while it is all still and peaceful. This has been a dear Sunday, Uncle Jim. Will you tell me more about my mother, more than those lovely lines, please?” “Yes. Put your head on my shoulder and I will tell you about her,” said Beth’s uncle. “I loved her dearly, dearly, and so did every one else.” They talked for a long time in the gathering darkness, lighted only by the flames of the wood-fire, leaping and falling in the sombre beauty of the library. Here Mrs. Cortlandt found them when she came down-stairs later, both of them pensively happy in the memory of Beth’s sweet mother, whom she had never known. CHAPTER VII PILGRIMS AND STRANGERS The next morning Beth opened her eyes upon a chill gray world. She jumped out of bed and into her cuddly bedroom slippers and drew aside her window curtains. The asphalt pavement seemed to have spread out and up over the whole sky; air, clouds, people and city walls looked of a piece and a color with the hard iron-gray road, giving the avenue the effect of an asphalt tube, bottom, sides and top alike. Snowflakes drifted through the air as if they did not half like it and found it too bleak to call down their comrades to make a cheerful snow-storm.