There would be a good deal of business to settle. John thought it better to look about for a new partner. Mr. Bradley had left quite a fortune for the times. He had been investing in up-town property, and John thought it would be wise to build, and sell or rent as his wife desired. The old home was dismantled, the best of the furniture stored for further use.
He tried to persuade his father to go farther up-town. Joe was also a factor in this matter.
For though the cholera had spared Dr. Fitch, the infirmities of age and hard work had overtaken him. A nephew who had recently graduated, and had the prestige of the same name, was anxious to take the practice. Joe felt as if circumstances were shaping a change for him; and he was ready now to take up a life of his own.
Then the Deans sold, and were to go up a little farther. Sometime, and before many years, there would be street-cars, instead of the slow, awkward stages, and people could get to and fro more rapidly. The trend was unmistakably up-town.
Mr. Reed hired out his house furnished, and went over to the Deans to board.
It seemed to Hanny that no one was quite the same. Nora Whitney was almost a head taller than Hanny, and was getting to be a very stylish girl. Her voice was considered promising, and was being cultivated. But poor old Pussy Gray had rounded out his life, and slept under a great white rosebush at the end of the yard. Mrs. Whitney's hair was nearly all white, and she was a very pretty woman. Mr. Theodore was showing silver in both hair and beard; but Delia changed very little. Aunt Clem went on living in her serene and cheerful fashion.
And then the bells rang out for the mid-century, 1850! How wonderful it seemed.
"I wonder if any one of us will live to nineteen hundred," questioned Hanny, with a strange thrill of awe in her voice.
"I don't suppose I will," replied her father; "but some of you may. Why, even Stephen wouldn't be much above eighty; and you'll be a little past sixty!" He laughed with a mellow, amused sound. "And all you young people of to-day will be telling your grandchildren how New York looked at the half-century mark. Well, it has made rapid strides since eighteen hundred. I sometimes wonder what there is to happen next. We have steam on land and water. We have discovered Eldorado, and invented the telegraph; and there are people figuring on laying one across the ocean. That may come in your day."
"And a sewing-machine," added the little girl, smilingly.