The Inside of the Cup | Page 2

that St. John's
was the most beautiful and churchly edifice in the city, thanks chiefly
to several gentlemen of sense, and one gentleman, at least, of taste--Mr.
Horace Bentley. The vicissitudes of civil war interrupted its building;
but when, in 1868, it stood completed, its stone unsoiled as yet by
factory smoke, its spire delicately pointing to untainted skies, its rose
window glowing above the porch, citizens on Tower Street often
stopped to gaze at it diagonally across the vacant lot set in order by Mr.
Thurston Gore, with the intent that the view might be unobstructed.
Little did the Goodriches and Gores, the Warings and Prestons and
Atterburys and other prominent people foresee the havoc that
prosperity and smoke were to play with their residential plans! One by
one, sooty commerce drove them out, westward, conservative though
they were, from the paradise they had created; blacker and blacker
grew the gothic facade of St. John's; Thurston Gore departed, but

leased his corner first for a goodly sum, his ancestors being from
Connecticut; leased also the vacant lot he had beautified, where stores
arose and hid the spire from Tower Street. Cable cars moved serenely
up the long hill where a panting third horse had been necessary, cable
cars resounded in Burton Street, between the new factory and the
church where Dr. Gilman still preached of peace and the delights of the
New-Jerusalem. And before you could draw your breath, the cable cars
had become electric. Gray hairs began to appear in the heads of the
people Dr. Gilman had married in the '60's and their children were
going East to College.

II
In the first decade of the twentieth century, Asa, Waring still clung to
the imposing, early Victorian mansion in Hamilton Street. It presented
an uncompromising and rather scornful front to the sister mansions
with which it had hitherto been on intimate terms, now fast
degenerating into a shabby gentility, seeking covertly to catch the eye
of boarders, but as yet refraining from open solicitation. Their lawns
were growing a little ragged, their stone steps and copings revealing
cracks.
Asa Waring looked with a stern distaste upon certain aspects of modern
life. And though he possessed the means to follow his friends and
erstwhile neighbours into the newer paradise five miles westward, he
had successfully resisted for several years a formidable campaign to
uproot him. His three married daughters lived in that clean and verdant
district surrounding the Park (spelled with a capital), while Evelyn and
Rex spent most of their time in the West End or at the Country Clubs.
Even Mrs. Waring, who resembled a Roman matron, with her wavy
white hair parted in the middle and her gentle yet classic features,
sighed secretly at times at the unyielding attitude of her husband,
although admiring him for it. The grandchildren drew her.
On the occasion of Sunday dinner, when they surrounded her, her heart
was filled to overflowing.

The autumn sunlight, reddened somewhat by the slight haze of smoke,
poured in at the high windows of the dining-room, glinted on the silver,
and was split into bewildering colors by the prisms of the chandelier.
Many precious extra leaves were inserted under the white cloth, and
Mrs. Waring's eyes were often dimmed with happiness as she glanced
along the ranks on either side until they rested on the man with whom
she had chosen to pass her life. Her admiration for him had gradually
grown into hero-worship. His anger, sometimes roused, had a terrible
moral quality that never failed to thrill her, and the Loyal Legion button
on his black frock coat seemed to her an epitome of his character. He
sat for the most part silent, his remarkable, penetrating eyes, lighting
under his grizzled brows, smiling at her, at the children, at the
grandchildren. And sometimes he would go to the corner table, where
the four littlest sat, and fetch one back to perch on his knee and pull at
his white, military mustache.
It was the children's day. Uproar greeted the huge white cylinder of
ice-cream borne by Katie, the senior of the elderly maids; uproar
greeted the cake; and finally there was a rush for the chocolates, little
tablets wrapped in tinfoil and tied with red and blue ribbon. After that,
the pandemonium left the dining-room, to spread itself over the
spacious house from the basement to the great playroom in the attic,
where the dolls and blocks and hobby-horses of the parental generation
stoically awaited the new.
Sometimes a visitor was admitted to this sacramental feat, the dearest
old gentleman in the world, with a great, high bridged nose, a slight
stoop, a kindling look, and snow white hair, though the top of his head
was bald. He sat on Mrs. Waring's right, and