Page:The Fruit of the Tree (Wharton 1907).djvu/473

Rh The Dillons had been placed in charge of one of the old factory tenements, now transformed into a lodging-house for unmarried operatives. Even its harsh brick exterior, hung with creepers and brightened by flower-borders, had taken on a friendly air; and indoors it had a clean sunny kitchen, a big dining—room with cheerful-coloured walls, and a room where the men could lounge and smoke about a table covered with papers.

The creation of these model lodging-houses had always been a favourite scheme of Amherst’s, and the Dillons, incapacitated for factory work, had shown themselves admirably adapted to their new duties. In Mrs. Dillon’s small hot sitting-room, among the starched sofa-tidies and pink shells that testiﬁed to the family prosperity, Justine shone with enjoyment and sympathy. She had always taken an interest in the lives and thoughts of working-people: not so much the constructive interest of the sociological mind as the vivid imaginative concern of a heart open to every human appeal. She liked to hear about their hard struggles and small pathetic successes: the children’s sicknesses, the father’s lucky job, the little sum they had been able to put by, the plans they had formed for Tommy’s advancement, and how Sue’s good marks at school were still ahead of Mrs. Hagan’s Mary’s.

“What I really like is to gossip with them, and give them advice about the baby’s cough, and the cheapest [ 457 ]