" Emeline sent a few furious remarks
after him, and then wept over the sliced ham, the potato salad, and the
Saratoga chips, all of which she had brought home from a nearby delicacy
shop in oily paper bags only an hour ago. She wandered disconsolately
through the four rooms that had been her home for nearly six years. The
dust lay thick on the polished wood and glass of the sideboard and glass
closet in the dining-room; ashes and the ends of cigarettes filled half
a dozen little receptacles here and there; a welter of newspapers had
formed a great drift in a corner of the room, and the thick velour day
cover of the table had been pushed back to make way for a doubled and
spotted tablecloth and the despised meal. The kitchen was hideous with a
confusion of souring bottles of milk, dirty dishes, hardened ends of
loaves, and a sticky jam jar or two; Emeline's range was spotted and
rusty, she never fired it now; a three-burner gas plate sufficed for the
family's needs. In the bedroom a dozen garments were flung over the foot
of the unmade bed, Julia's toys and clothing littered this and the
sitting-room, the silk woof had been worn away on the heavily
upholstered furniture, and the strands of the cotton warp separated to
show the white lining beneath.
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