“Ah! you must not be afraid. Be afraid of nothing, and everything will go well!”
And then Mrs. Penniman paid for her cup of tea, and Morris paid for his oyster stew, and they went out together into the dimly-lighted wilderness of the Seventh Avenue. The dusk had closed in completely and the street lamps were separated by wide intervals of a pavement in which cavities and fissures played a disproportionate part. An omnibus, emblazoned with strange pictures, went tumbling over the dislocated cobble-stones.
“How will you go home?” Morris asked, following this vehicle with an interested eye. Mrs. Penniman had taken his arm.
She hesitated a moment. “I think this manner would be pleasant,” she said; and she continued to let him feel the value of his support.
So he walked with her through the devious ways of the west side of the town, and through the bustle of gathering nightfall in populous streets, to the quiet precinct of Washington Square. They lingered a moment at the foot of Dr. Sloper’s white marble steps, above which a spotless white door, adorned with a glittering silver plate, seemed to figure, for Morris, the closed portal of happiness; and then Mrs. Penniman’s companion rested a melancholy eye upon a lighted window in the upper part of the house.
“That is my room—my dear little room!” Mrs. Penniman remarked.
Morris started. “Then I needn’t come walking round the Square to gaze at it.”
“That’s as you please. But Catherine’s is behind; two noble windows on the second floor. I think you can see them from the other street.”
“I don’t want to see them, ma’am!” And Morris turned his back to the house.
“I will tell her you have been here, at any rate,” said Mrs. Penniman, pointing to the spot where they stood; “and I will give her your message—that she is to hold fast!”