The Fruit of the Tree | Page 5

of professional etiquette, or asked
you to do so, if I hadn't a hope of bettering things; but I have, and that
is why I've held on at Westmore for the last few months, instead of
getting out of it altogether."
"I'm glad of that," she said quickly.
"The owner of the mills--young Richard Westmore--died last winter,"
he went on, "and my hope--it's no more--is that the new broom may
sweep a little cleaner."
"Who is the new broom?"
"Westmore left everything to his widow, and she is coming here
to-morrow to look into the management of the mills."
"Coming? She doesn't live here, then?"
"At Hanaford? Heaven forbid! It's an anomaly nowadays for the
employer to live near the employed. The Westmores have always lived
in New York--and I believe they have a big place on Long Island."

"Well, at any rate she is coming, and that ought to be a good sign. Did
she never show any interest in the mills during her husband's life?"
"Not as far as I know. I've been at Westmore three years, and she's not
been seen there in my time. She is very young, and Westmore himself
didn't care. It was a case of inherited money. He drew the dividends,
and Truscomb did the rest."
Miss Brent reflected. "I don't know much about the constitution of
companies--but I suppose Mrs. Westmore doesn't unite all the offices in
her own person. Is there no one to stand between Truscomb and the
operatives?"
"Oh, the company, on paper, shows the usual official hierarchy.
Richard Westmore, of course, was president, and since his death the
former treasurer--Halford Gaines--has replaced him, and his son,
Westmore Gaines, has been appointed treasurer. You can see by the
names that it's all in the family. Halford Gaines married a Miss
Westmore, and represents the clan at Hanaford--leads society, and
keeps up the social credit of the name. As treasurer, Mr. Halford Gaines
kept strictly to his special business, and always refused to interfere
between Truscomb and the operatives. As president he will probably
follow the same policy, the more so as it fits in with his inherited
respect for the status quo, and his blissful ignorance of economics."
"And the new treasurer--young Gaines? Is there no hope of his
breaking away from the family tradition?"
"Westy Gaines has a better head than his father; but he hates Hanaford
and the mills, and his chief object in life is to be taken for a New
Yorker. So far he hasn't been here much, except for the quarterly
meetings, and his routine work is done by another cousin--you perceive
that Westmore is a nest of nepotism."
Miss Brent's work among the poor had developed her interest in social
problems, and she followed these details attentively.
"Well, the outlook is not encouraging, but perhaps Mrs. Westmore's

coming will make a change. I suppose she has more power than any
one."
"She might have, if she chose to exert it, for her husband was really the
whole company. The official cousins hold only a few shares apiece."
"Perhaps, then, her visit will open her eyes. Who knows but poor
Dillon's case may help others--prove a beautiful dispensation, as Mrs.
Ogan would say?"
"It does come terribly pat as an illustration of some of the abuses I want
to have remedied. The difficulty will be to get the lady's ear. That's her
house we're coming to, by the way."
An electric street-lamp irradiated the leafless trees and stone gate-posts
of the building before them. Though gardens extended behind it, the
house stood so near the pavement that only two short flights of steps
intervened between the gate-posts and the portico. Light shone from
every window of the pompous rusticated façade--in the turreted
"Tuscan villa" style of the 'fifties--and as Miss Brent and Amherst
approached, their advance was checked by a group of persons who
were just descending from two carriages at the door.
The lamp-light showed every detail of dress and countenance in the
party, which consisted of two men, one slightly lame, with a long white
moustache and a distinguished nose, the other short, lean and
professional, and of two ladies and their laden attendants.
"Why, that must be her party arriving!" Miss Brent exclaimed; and as
she spoke the younger of the two ladies, turning back to her maid,
exposed to the glare of the electric light a fair pale face shadowed by
the projection of her widow's veil.
"Is that Mrs. Westmore?" Miss Brent whispered; and as Amherst
muttered: "I suppose so; I've never seen her----" she continued
excitedly: "She looks so like--do you know what her name was before
she married?"

He drew his brows together in a hopeless effort of remembrance. "I
don't know--I must have heard--but I never can recall people's