Yet the Paytons, who could have bought several lots in the cemetery (or over on the Hill, either, which was where they belonged!), did not leave the old house--a big, brownstone cube, with a belvedere on top of it that looked like a bird-cage. The yard in front of the house was so shaded by ailanthus-trees that grass refused to grow there, and an iron dog, guarding the patch of bare earth, was spotted with mold. The street was very quiet,--except when the barber's children squabbled shrilly, or Baker's livery-stable sent out a few funeral hacks, or when, from a barred window in the ell of the Payton house, there came a noisy laugh. And always, on the half-hour, the two mules went tinkling along, their neat little feet cupping down over the cobblestones, and their trace-chains swinging and sagging about their heels. The conductor on the car had been on the route so long that he knew many of his patrons, and nodded to them in a friendly way, and said it was a good day, or too cold for the season; occasionally he imparted information which he thought might be of interest to them. On this October afternoon of brown fog and occasional dashes of rain he enlightened a lady with a vaguely sweet face, who signaled him to stop at No. 15. "Miss Payton's out," he said, pulling the strap over his head and bringing his car to a standstill; "but her ma's at home. I brought the old lady back on my last trip, just as Miss Freddy was starting off with that pup of hers." "It's the 'old lady' I've come to see," his fare said, smiling, and, gathering up her skirts, stepped down into the Payton Street mud. The bell jangled and the mules went clattering off over the cobblestones. Mrs. William Childs, picking her way to the sidewalk, said to herself that she almost wished Freddy and her dog were at home, instead of the "old lady." "Poor dear Ellen," she thought, in amiable detachment from other people's troubles; "she's always asking me to sit in judgment on Fred--and there's nothing on earth I can do." It occurred to her as she passed under the dripping ailanthus-trees and up the white marble door-steps that Payton Street was a gloomy place for a young creature like Frederica to live. "Even my Laura would kick," she thought; her thoughts were often in her Laura's vernacular. In the dark hall, clutching at the newel-post on which an Egyptian maiden held aloft a gas-burner in a red globe, she extended a foot to a melancholy mulatto woman, who removed her rubbers and then hung her water-proof on the rack beside a silk hat belonging to the late Mr. Payton--kept there, Mrs. Childs knew, to frighten perennially expected burglars. "Thank you, Flora," she said. "Has Mr. Weston come yet?" When Flora explained that Mr. Weston was not expected until later, she started up-stairs--then hesitated, her hand on the shoulder of the Egyptian maiden: "Mr. Mortimore--he's not about?"