O. 15 in the third section of the Haworth apartment-house was vacant. No. 17 above it and No. 13 below it felt uneasy when they realized that a vacuum existed between them which might draw to itself elements of an uncongenial character. No. 16, whose door commanded the door of No. 15, and whose right to borrow everything in No. 15 worth borrowing had long been recognized as a perquisite of her position in the Ha worth, was in a quiver of apprehension anent a new lodger.
No. 13 on the floor below was known as Mrs. Kelly, a talkative soul, given to speculation. There was a Mr. Kelly—H. Augustus—but to the inmates of the Haworth his was a pale personality; and there were two small Kellys, to relate whose miraculous recoveries from many illnesses would Mrs. Kelly seriously incline. Her husband's employment was somewhat mysterious, owing to the fact that she had given out that "Mr. Kelly was in the Custom-house," but had neglected to state whether as a dutiable commodity, an unclaimed article, or an employé. Judging by Mrs. Kelly, being in the Custom-house was a lucrative position. She dressed with a splendor which caused her incomings and outgoings to be watched from behind the blinds of No. 16, No. 17, and even No. 18, who, attracted by a rustle strictly feminine, laid down his brushes and peeped out, only to see No. 13 arrest the progress of a car with a wave of her parasol. Mrs. Kelly was the only person in the Haworth who had pretensions to style. Besides her rustling garments, she had an easy, friendly way of alluding to people moving in the great world of fashion; and she had a brother, Mr. George Judkins, who was suspected in the Haworth of being a social luminary. Mrs. Kelly was regarded as the common mother of the Haworth, and honored as such.
No. 16, who two weeks after the departure of No. 15 declared her independence by borrowing a collander of No. 14, was a music teacher; by name, Miss Merry. There were rumors rife in the Haworth that Miss Merry, in the secluded recesses of No. 16, concealed a maiden aunt as the sop to Mrs. Grundy-Cerberus. The maiden aunt would have been regarded as entirely mythical had not Mrs. Kelly, on one of those tours of visits to which she occasionally subjected the Haworth in the character of common mother, unwarily opened a door and come upon an aged lady darkling in the dim interior, who there was no reason for believing was not the illusive maiden aunt brought to bay. Mrs. Kelly, who in common with the rest of the Haworth had regarded Miss Merry's protectress as a fiction, shut the door in trepidation, and made no sign that she had discovered Miss Merry's cache. Skeletons in closets, though they took the form of maiden aunts, were obnoxious to her open nature. It was an experience nevertheless by which she set great store. As a piquant bit of gossip it obtained favor in the Haworth, and Mrs. Kelly attained a still higher renown as the Columbus of the maiden aunt.
Under the roof, surveying an uneven expanse of flat and sloping roofs of slate and tin and a forest of chimneys, the inmates of No. 17 and No. 18 had made nests for themselves out of such scraps as fell in their way. No. 18, the smallest of the flats, for the Haworth shrank as it rose higher, was occupied by three young men. They were regarded askance in the Haworth, as refractory elements to the fine social tone which distinguished the lower floors. Moreover, their professions and antecedents were wrapt in a suspicious obscurity. There was the tired young man who came home late, and whose hands were always black. Miss Merry, noting him from behind her door, said he was a "." She did not know just what this meant, but then there was a suggestion of ink and general murkiness about it which accorded with the black hands. There was the man with the erratic employment, who sometimes worked till twelve o'clock at night, and sometimes had nothing to do all day long. And then there was Morrill, whom they all knew slightly, liked very much, and pitied a little because he was the victim of an unfortunate ambition, was so poor, so unlucky, and had finally crowned his misfortunes by falling in love. Morrill and his loves interested the Haworth almost as much as Miss Merry and her aunt.
The Haworth regarded No. 17 with tender curiosity. When her light feet pattered down the long nights of stairs, and the door snapped behind her, heads appeared at all the front windows of the third section of the Haworth. All, that is, but the front window of No. 18. Peeping out between the dingy scrim curtains, with his pens or brushes in his mouth and his heart in his throat, Morrill, the unlucky, stood watching her till she disappeared down the street.