Open the Door; A Novel (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II AS soon as Juley was well enough she returned home with the children to Glasgow. And there, when they were got past the first excitement of condolences, it looked as if things would continue much as they had been in Sholto's life-time. Every one said that the widow bore up wonderfully, that she was an example of Christian fortitude. Sholto's affairs were in good order though people were surprised at the smallness of his estate, and business acquaintances shook their heads a little, murmuring the word " speculations." But Juley herself made no complaint. She was indeed relieved at having to give up her husband's cherished project of moving to a grander house in a more fashionable neighborhood. Collessie Street, at the top of its precipitous, roughly cobbled hill, had at one time been a residential quarter of distinction. But in 1896, the roomy, solid, black houses? deep-bitten by the carbonic deposits of half a century? with their square-pillared porticoes, and their stone areas guarded by rusty spear-head railings, had a forsaken look. Their domestic curtains were more and more giving place to the ground-glass and perforated metal screens of institutions; and where once a famous surgeon had brought up his family, there was now a dingy training-home for fallen girls. The place, however, was not without dignity. And to Juley and her children, the ugly, well-built house at the corner felt like a part of themselves. They all hated the idea of leaving it, even for the excitement of a West-End mansion. From the big day-nursery windows on the top story which commanded wide, gray views to the south and west, the girls could remember watching the distant ascent of their first fireworks?rockets soaring in honor of Glasgow's earliest Exhibition. From the same windows t...