The Project Gutenberg EBook of His Family, by Ernest Poole

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Title: His Family

Author: Ernest Poole

Release Date: December 20, 2004 [EBook #14396]
[Date last updated: April 8, 2005]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO DALLAS
ATLANTA SAN FRANCISCO

MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED
LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.
TORONTO

HIS FAMILY

BY
ERNEST POOLE
AUTHOR OF "THE HARBOR"

New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
1917

_All rights reserved_

COPYRIGHT, 1916 AND 1917
BY THE RIDGWAY COMPANY

COPYRIGHT, 1917
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

Set up and electrotyped. Published May, 1917.

TO M.A.

HIS FAMILY

HIS FAMILY

CHAPTER I

He was thinking of the town he had known. Not of _old_ New York--he had
heard of that from old, old men when he himself had still been young and
had smiled at their garrulity. He was thinking of a _young_ New York, the
mighty throbbing city to which he had come long ago as a lad from the New
Hampshire mountains. A place of turbulent thoroughfares, of shouting
drivers, hurrying crowds, the crack of whips and the clatter of wheels; an
uproarious, thrilling town of enterprise, adventure, youth; a city of
pulsing energies, the center of a boundless land; a port of commerce with
all the world, of stately ships with snowy sails; a fascinating pleasure
town, with throngs of eager travellers hurrying from the ferry boats and
rolling off in hansom cabs to the huge hotels on Madison Square. A city
where American faces were still to be seen upon all its streets, a cleaner
and a kindlier town, with more courtesy in its life, less of the vulgar
scramble. A city of houses, separate homes, of quiet streets with rustling
trees, with people on the doorsteps upon warm summer evenings and groups of
youngsters singing as they came trooping by in the dark. A place of music
and romance. At the old opera house downtown, on those dazzling evenings
when as a boy he