buked occasionally. Dot pushed her chair back from the table. The chair was golden oak, too. Her mother had believed in golden oak for dining-rooms. There were two other chairs like the one Dot sat on. One had arms and was Papa's chair. There was a long, massive buffet at the south wall. It wore an ecru scarf, and a red glass bowl sat on it with vindictive satisfaction. The bowl was an uncertain, distorted haze of red when reflected on the door of the china closet which stood directly across the room. Dot accepted that room. It never occurred to her that the red bowl could be set on the top of the china closet and the blue vase substituted in its place. Things were where they had been in the house on Lexington Avenue, and no one had thought of changing them.
Mamma had died in that other house. Dot didn't remember her. She had a tintype of a black-haired girl with a large mouth and an elaborate pompadour. That was Mamma. The tintype had been taken at Coney Island. A dashing, derbyed youth stood proudly at her side. That wasn't Papa. Papa had been the photographer. Romance here perhaps, but Dot didn't see it, and probably Papa didn't either any more.
Dot wondered vaguely how Mamma would have liked their Bronx apartment. Rents had risen since Mamma's day. Fifty-five dollars the Haleys paid with Jim and Papa rooming together and no parlor for company. Not that they had much company, but there were friends of Dot's and a man now and then from Papa's lodge. Edna was the only one who came to see Jim, and nobody cared with Edna that there was no parlor.
Dot's second yawn was halted by Papa, who suddenly turned his head expectantly toward the hall. The door opened noisily, and Papa called out, "Is that you, Jim?"
"Yep, that's me."
