"That is the world, I am afraid," was Mrs. McGregor's observation. "Still he had given humanity a hand up and done a great service to his generation. That knowledge was better than all the fortunes he could have possessed."
"But he might so easily have had both, Ma," returned the practical Carl. "I call the help to humanity slim comfort when you've been cheated out of what should have been yours. I shouldn't even have been grateful had I been Crompton for the fine monument they set up to his memory long after he was dead. What they ought to have done was to treat him square while he was alive to enjoy it."
"See that as you go through life you do not forget your own philosophy, my son," cautioned his mother.
The following week brought a letter from Uncle Frederick and very important the McGregors felt when they took it, adorned with its English stamp, from the mail box in the hall. Mulberry Court did not receive so many letters that the arrival of one was a routine affair. No, indeed! When a real letter came to any of its residents the fact was remarked upon by the recipient with a casualness calculated to veil the pride he or she experienced.
Mrs. O'Dowd, for example, in passing through the hall would call carelessly to one of her neighbors:
"I've just had a letter from my sister Jane in Fall River. Plague the girl! What can she be writing to me about?"
Nevertheless, in spite of this ungracious observation Mrs. O'Dowd was much pleased to be seen with the letter and overhear her friends whispering among themselves:
"Julie O'Dowd had a letter from Jane to-day. It was in a blue envelope and looked like quite a thick one. What do you suppose the girl had to say? Most likely Julie will tell us by and by."
And sure enough! The prediction was a true prophecy, for before the day was out Julie had made an errand to every flat in the house and before leaving had read to each family extracts from the letter, interspersing the paragraphs with a running line of comment concerning Jane and her history since babyhood. By evening the letter had become blurred and dingy with much handling and Julie could recite it from beginning to end.
Yet for all the interest evoked by Julie's letters and the other rare epistles that found their way into Mulberry Court these missives came after all only from American cities which lay within a radius of a hundred miles of Baileyville. They had not traveled far, any more than had the persons to whom they were addressed. They were not letters written on thin foreign paper and bearing unfamiliar postmarks and the fascinating stamps of other nations. Only the McGregors could boast such splendor as that.