Turning, Philip left the room and descended to the narrow hall below. Here it was already quite dark. He fumbled about until he found his hat and overcoat, and after getting into them made his way back through the parlor and sitting-room to the dining-room where his mother was arranging the supper table.
“Oh, it is you, Philip,” she said, glancing up from her work. “I heard you in the hall and thought it must be the girls returning.”
Mrs. Southard was a woman of fifty with a strong placid face that had taken comparatively few lines. Her dress was of the simplest black, and severely plain. It had been black ever since Philip could remember, for his father had died when he was a baby.
While Philip was conscious that his small world had changed much in the years that marked the limits of his memory, his mother was still precisely the same as he recalled her, returning to his first vague impression of people and things. She was not and had never been an intellectual woman perhaps, but to him she stood for that which was most steadfast and purposeful. Nor was she hard with all her splendid strength. Her judgments were infinitely more generous than those of most women.
“You are not going out, Philip?” his mother asked, observing that he was ready for the street. “It's almost supper-time.”
“I won't keep you waiting, mother; I am just going down-town to post some letters.”
“Yes, dear, but do be here for supper.”
“I shall be.”
He turned back into the sitting-room, intending to leave the house by the side door. His mother followed him, and on the threshold he faced her again.
“What is it?” he asked, “anything you want from down-town?”