, uncle, guardian and
employer of the fresh, rosy-cheeked lad who sat next to Peter on
the night of Morris's dinner, was never a joyous function.
The room itself, its light shut out by the adjoining extensions,
prevented it; so did the glimpse of hard asphalt covering the
scrap of a yard, its four melancholy posts hung about with wire
clothes-lines; and so did the clean-shaven, smug-faced butler, who
invariably conducted his master's guests to their chairs with the
movement of an undertaker, and who had never been known to crack a
smile of any kind, long or short, during his five years' sojourn
with the family of Breen.
Not that anybody wanted Parkins to crack one, that is, not his
master, and certainly not his mistress, and most assuredly not his
other mistress, Miss Corinne, the daughter of the lady whom the
successful Wall Street broker had made his first and only wife.
All this gloomy atmosphere might have been changed for the better
had there been a big, cheery open wood fire snapping and blazing
away, sputtering out its good morning as you entered--and there
would have been if any one of the real inmates had insisted upon
it--fought for it, if necessary; or if in summer one could have
seen through the curtained windows a stretch of green grass with
here and there a tree, or one or two twisted vines craning their
necks to find out what was going on inside; or if in any or all
seasons, a wholesome, happy-hearted, sunny wife looking like a
bunch of roses just out of a bath, had sat behind the smoking
coffee-urn, inquiring whether one or two lumps of sugar would be
enough; or a gladsome daughter who, in a sudden burst of
affection, had thrown her arms around her father's neck and kissed
him because she loved him, and because she wanted his day and her
day to begin that way:--if, I say, there had been all, or one-
half, or one-quarter of these things, the atmosphere of this
sepulchral interior might have been improved--but there wasn't.
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