house, he
brings sorrow. But in South Harvey when he crosses a threshold he brings
sorrow and want. And what a vast difference lies between sorrow, and
sorrow with want. For sometimes the want that death brings is so keen
that it smothers sorrow, and the poor may not mourn without shame--shame
that they feel the self-interest in their sorrow. So when Death entered
a hundred homes in South Harvey that winter day at the beginning of the
new year, with him came hunger, with him came cold, with him came the
harlot's robe and the thief's mask, and the blight of ignorance, and the
denial of democratic opportunity to scores of children. With death that
day as he crossed the dreary, unpainted portals of the poor came horror
that overshadows grief among the poor and makes the boast of the
democracy of death a ruthless irony.

CHAPTER XIX

HEREIN CAPTAIN MORTON FALLS UNDER SUSPICION AND HENRY FENN FALLS FROM
GRACE

On Market Street nearly opposite the Traders' National Bank during the
decades of the eighties and nineties was a smart store front upon which
was fastened a large, black and gold sign bearing the words "The Paris
Millinery Company" and under these words in smaller letters, "Mrs.
Brunhilde Herdicker, Prop." If Mr. George Brotherton and his Amen Corner
might be said to be the clearing house of public opinion in Harvey, the
establishment of Mrs. Brunhilde Herdicker, Prop., might well be said to
be the center of public clamor. For things started in this
establishment--by things one means in general, trouble; variegated of
course as to domestic, financial, social, educational, amatory, and at
times political. Now the women of Harvey and South Harvey and of Greeley
county--and of Hancock and Seymour counties so far as that goes--used
the establishment of "The Paris Millinery Company, Mrs. Brunhilde
Herdicker, Prop.," as a club--a highly democratic club--the only place
this side of the grave, in fact, where women met upon terms of something
like equality.

And in spring when women molt and change their feathers, the
establishment of "Mrs. Brunhilde Herdicker, Prop." at its opening rose
to the dignity of a social institution. It was a kind of folk-mote. Here
at this opening, where there was music and flowers and bonbons, women
assembled en masse. Mrs. Nesbit and Mrs. Fenn, Mrs. Dexter and Violet
Hogan, she that was born Mauling met, if not as sisters at least in what
might be called a great step-sisterhood; and