There was an air of calmand reserved opulence aboutthe Weightman mansion thatspoke not of money squandered,but of wealth prudently applied.Standing on a corner of the Avenue nolonger fashionable for residence, it lookedupon the swelling tide of business withan expression of complacency and half-disdain.

[Pg 2]

The house was not beautiful. There wasnothing in its straight front of chocolate-coloredstone, its heavy cornices, its broad,staring windows of plate glass, its carvedand bronze-bedecked mahogany doors atthe top of the wide stoop, to charm the eyeor fascinate the imagination. But it waseminently respectable, and in its way imposing.It seemed to say that the glitteringshops of the jewelers, the milliners, the confectioners,the florists, the picture-dealers,the furriers, the makers of rare and costlyantiquities, retail traders in luxuries of life,were beneath the notice of a house that hadits foundations in the high finance, and wasbuilt literally and figuratively in the shadowof St. Petronius' Church.

At the same time there was somethingself-pleased and congratulatory in the wayin which the mansion held its own amid thechanging neighborhood. It almost seemedto be lifted up a little, among the tall buildingsnear at hand, as if it felt the risingvalue of the land on which it stood.