Chapter I

ONE afternoon in January or February I was on a Lexington Avenue car going up-town. At Sixty-seventh Street the car was invaded by a vivacious crowd of young girls, each with a stack of books under one of her arms. It was evident that they were returning home from Normal College, which was on that corner. Some of them preferred to stand, holding on to straps, so as to face and converse with their seated chums

I was watching them as they chattered, laughed, or whispered, bubbling over with the joy of being young and with the consciousness of their budding womanhood, when my attention was attracted to one of their number—a tall, lanky, long-necked lass of fifteen or sixteen. She was hanging on to a strap directly across the car from me. I could not see her face, but the shape of her head and a certain jerk of it, when she laughed, looked strikingly familiar to me. Presently she chanced to turn half-way around, and I recognized her. It was Lucy. I had not seen her for six years. She was completely changed and yet the same. Not yet fully formed, elongated, attenuated, angular, ridiculously too tall for her looks, and not quite so pretty as she had been at nine or ten, but overflowing with color, with light, with blossoming life, she thrilled me almost to tears. I was aching to call out her name, to hear myself say "Lucy" as I had once been wont to do, but I was not sure that it would be advisable to let her father hear of my lingering interest in his family. While I was thus debating with myself whether I should accost her, her glance fell on me. She transferred it to one of the windows, and the next moment she fell to eying me furtively.

"She has recognized me, but she won’t come over to me," I thought. "She seems to be aware of her father’s jealousy." It was a painful moment

Presently her fresh, youthful face brightened up. She bent over to two of her girl friends and whispered something to them, and then these threw glances at me. After some more whispering Lucy faced about boldly and stepped over to me

"I beg your pardon. Aren’t you Mr. Levinsky?" she asked, with sweet, girlish shyness

"Of course I am, Lucy! Lucy dear, how are you? Quite a young lady!"

"I was wondering," she went on without answering. "At first I did not know.

You did seem familiar to me, but I could not locate your face. But then, all at once, don’t you know, I said to myself, ’Why, it’s Mr. Levinsky.’ Oh, I’m so glad to see you."

She was all flushed and beaming with the surprise of the meeting, with consciousness of the eyes of her classmates who were watching her, and with something else which seemed to say: "I am Lucy, but not the little girl you used to play with. I am a young woman."

"And I was wondering who that tall, charming young lady was," I said. "Lord! how you have grown, Lucy!"

"Yes, I’m already taller than mother and father," she answered

"Than both together?"

"No, not as bad as all that," she giggled

For children of our immigrants to outgrow their parents, not only intellectually, but physically as well, is a common phenomenon. Perhaps it is due to their being fed far better than their parents were in their childhood and youth

I asked Lucy to take a seat by my side and she did, cheerfully. (" Maybe she does not know anything," I wondered.) "How is Danny?" I asked. "Still fat?"

"No, not very," she laughed. "He goes to school. I have a little sister, too," she added, blushing the least bit.

I winced. It was as though I had heard something revoltingly unseemly. Then a thought crossed my mind, and, seized with an odd feeling of curiosity, I asked: "How old is she?"

"Oh, a little less than a year," Lucy replied. "She’s awful cute," she laughed

"And how is papa?" I inquired, to turn the conversation

"He’s all right, thank you," she answered, gravely. "Only he lost a lot of money on account of the hard times. Many of his customers were out of work.

Business is picking up, though."

"And how is Becky? Are you still great friends?"

"Why, she ought to be here!" she replied, gazing around the car. "Must be in the next car."

"In another car!" I exclaimed, in mock amazement. "Not by your side?" Lucy laughed. "We are in the same class," she said

"And, of course, the families still live in the same house?" She nodded affirmatively, adding that they lived at One Hundred and Second Street near Madison Avenue, about a block and a half from the Park

"Come up some time, won’t you?" she gurgled, with childish amiability, yet with apparent awkwardness

I wondered whether she was aware of her father’s jealousy. "If she were she certainly would not invite me to the house," I reflected

I made no answer to her invitation

"Won’t you come up?" she insisted.

I thought: "She doesn’t seem to know anything about it. She has only heard that I had a quarrel with her mother." I shook my head, smiling affectionately

"Why, are you still angry at mother?" she pursued, shaking her head, deprecatingly, as who should say, "You’re a bad boy."

I thought, "Of course she doesn’t know." I smiled again. Then I said: "You’re a sweet girl, all the same. And a big one, too."

"Thank you. Do come. Will you?" I shook my head

"Will you never come?" she asked, playfully. "Never? Never?"

"I have told you you’re a charming girl, haven’t I? What more do you want?"

The American children of the Ghetto are American not only in their language, tastes, and ambitions, but in outward appearance as well. Their bearing, gestures, the play of their features, and something in the very expression of their Semitic faces proclaim the land of their birth. All this was true of Lucy. She was fascinatingly American, and I told her so

"You’re not simply a charming girl. You’re a charming American girl," I said.

I wondered whether Dora had been keeping up her studies, and by questioning Lucy about the books under her arm I contrived to elicit the information that her mother had read not only such works as the Vicar of Wakefield, Washington Irving’s Sketch Book, and Lamb’s Shakespeare Stories, which had been part of Lucy’s course during her first year at college, but that she had also read some of the works of Cooper, George Eliot, Dickens, Thackeray, Hawthorne, and all sorts of cheaper novels

"Mother is a great reader," Lucy said. "She reads more than I do. Why, she reads newspapers and magazines—everything she can lay her hands on! Father calls her Professor."

She also told me that her mother had read a good deal of poetry, that she knew the "Ancient Mariner" and "The Raven" by heart

"She’s always at me because I don’t care for poetry as much as she does," she laughed.

"Well, you’re not taller than your mother in this respect, are you?"

"N-no," she assented, with an appreciative giggle

She left the car on the corner of One Hundred and Second Street. I was in a queer state of excitement

It flashed upon my mind that the section of Central Park in the vicinity of One Hundred and Second Street teemed with women and baby-carriages, and that it was but natural to suppose that Dora would be out every day wheeling her baby in that locality, and reading a book, perhaps. I visioned myself meeting her there some afternoon and telling her of my undying love. I even worked out the details of the plan, but I felt that I should never carry it out

I still loved Dora, but that was the Dora of six years before, an image of an enshrined past. She was a dear, sad memory scarcely anything more, and it seemed as though to disturb that sadness were sacrilege

"I shall probably run up against her some day," I said to myself, dolefully

And an echo seemed to add, "You are all alone in the world!"