Though it was too late to go over the house Fanny wanted, it occurred to her that she might look at the outside of it before she took the Harlem elevated train at one of the West Side stations.

The walk would do her good and perhaps blow away the disquieting recollections of her encounter with Judge Crowborough.
Not until her mood changed, she determined, would she go back to the children.
At the corner she bought a bunch of lilacs because a man held them out to her temptingly when she approached, and as she buried her face in the blossoms, she said resolutely: "No, I haven't had a mean life.

It can't be mean unless I think it so, and I won't--I won't.

After all, it isn't the kind of life you have, but the way you think about it that matters." The air was deliciously mild; streaks of pale gold lingered above the grim outlines of the buildings; and the wild, sweet spirit of spring fluttered like an imprisoned creature in the gray streets of the city.
It was May again, and the pipes of Pan were fluting the ancient songs in the ancient racial fields of the memory.

There was a spring softness in the fleecy white of the clouds, in the flowing gold of the sunset, in the languorous kiss of the breeze, in the gentle rippling waves of the dust on the pavement.