“I miss the old-fashioned flowers,” said Gabriella to her mother in one of Charley’s plethoric pauses.  “The microphylla roses and snowballs.”

“Everybody is planting crimson ramblers and hydrangeas now,” responded Mrs. Carr, with something of her son-in-law’s pride in the onward movement of her surroundings.

“Here are the monuments!” cried Charley, who had treated each apartment house or hospital as if it were a bright, inestimable jewel in the city’s crown.  “You don’t see many streets finer than this in New York, do you?”

“It looks very pretty and attractive,” answered Gabriella, as they swung dangerously round a statue, and then started in a race up the avenue, “but I miss the shrubs and the flowers.”

“Oh, there are flowers enough.  You just wait till you get on a bit.  We’ve got some urns filled with hydrangeas, that queer new sort between blue and pink.  But what do you want with shrubs?  All they’re good for is to get in your way whenever you want to look out into the street.  Mrs. Madison was telling me only yesterday that she cut down the lilac bushes in her front yard because they kept her from recognizing the people in motor cars.  Look at that house now, that’s one of the finest, in the city.  Rushington built it—­he made his money in fertilizers, and the one next with the green tiles belongs to Hanly, the tobacco trust fellow, you know, and this whopper on the next square is where Albertson lives.  He made his pile out of railroad stocks—­he’s one of the banking firm of Albertson, Jacobstein, Moss & Company.  Awfully clever fellows, but too tricky for me, I give them a wide berth when I go out to do business—­”

“But where are the old people—­the people I used to know?”

“Oh, they’re scattered about everywhere, but they haven’t got most of the money.  A lot of ’em live up here, and a lot are down in Franklin Street in the same old houses.”

“Tell me about Cousin Jimmy.”

“He’s up here, too.  Pussy planned that red brick house with the green shutters next door to us.  I reckon Jimmy is about as prosperous as is good for him, but he’s getting on.  He must be over seventy now.  He has a son who is a chip of the old block, and his youngest daughter was the prettiest girl who ever came out here.  Margaret will tell you about her.”

“And the Peytons?” Her voice trembled, and she looked hastily away from the keen eyes of Margaret.

“They are still in the old home—­at least Arthur lives there with his Cousin Nelly.  You know Mrs Peyton died about nine or ten years ago?”

“Yes, I heard it.”

“She was getting on, but it was a great loss to Arthur.  Somehow, I could never make up my mind about Arthur.  He was bright enough as a young chap, and we used to think he would have a brilliant future; but when the time came, he never seemed to catch on.  He wasn’t progressive, and he has never amounted to much more than he did when he left college.  What I say about him is that he had the wrong ideas—­Yes, Jane, I mean exactly what I say, he had the wrong ideas.  He doesn’t know what he is driving at.  No progress, no push, no punch in him.”