The Eyes of the World

It was winter--cold and snow and ice and naked trees and leaden clouds andstinging wind. The house was an ancient mansion on an old street in that city of culturewhich has given to the history of our nation--to education, to religion, to thesciences, and to the arts--so many illustrious names. In the changing years, before the beginning of my story, the woman'simmediate friends and associates had moved from the neighborhood to thenewer and more fashionable districts of a younger generation. In that city ofher father's there were few of her old companions left. There were fewerwho remembered. The distinguished leaders in the world of art and letters, whose voices had been so often heard within the walls of her home, had, one by one, passed on; leaving their works and their names to theirchildren. The children, in the greedy rush of these younger times, had tooreadily forgotten the woman who, to the culture and genius of a passingday, had been hostess and frien