She summons a hack, and is driven away eastward to the address he has given her. She finds it—a tall tenement house in a close street, smelling of breweries, and she ascends a long flight of carpetless stairs, and knocks at a door on the upper landing. It is opened, and the well-remembered face of Aunt Chatty looks out.
"Mrs. Stuart!"
A darkly, beautiful face is before her, two black gloved hands are outstretched, two brown brilliant eyes shine upon her through tears. And Mrs. Stuart recoils with a gasp.
"Oh, dear me!" she says, "it is Edith!"
Yes, it is Edith, with tears large and thick in her eyes, who kisses the familiar face, and who is sitting beside her, how, Mrs. Stuart never knows in her amaze and bewilderment, in the humble little front room.
How changed it all is from the splendor of that other house in Fifth
Avenue. How different this dingy black alpaca dress and rusty widow's
cap from the heavy silks and French millinery of other days. But Aunt
Chatty's good, easy, kindly face is the same.
A hundred questions are asked and answered. Edith tells her how long she has been in New York, of how only an hour ago she chanced upon Charley, and found out their whereabouts. And now, if Aunt Chatty pleases, she is going to take off her bonnet and wait until Beatrix comes home.
"Of course you will wait! take off your things right away. Dear me! and it is really our Edith; won't Trix be surprised and glad. It isn't much of a place this," says poor Mrs. Stuart, glancing about her ruefully; "not what you're used to, my dear, but such as it is—"
An impetuous kiss from Edith closes her lips.
"Ah hush!" she says; "you are in it—and glad to see me. I ask no more."