Mimi looked back on her days of suffering and poverty almost as though it had been a terrible dream. Her aunt deluged her with kindness, delicately drew from her the story of her unsuccessful struggle in Philadelphia against odds that proved too great for her. The one link with that nightmare of pain and worry and anxiety was her aching need of Petit Jean. Night after night she cried herself to sleep. Night after night she awoke when all the rest of the household was asleep, feeling him near her, his warm flesh nestled against her side. She could feel his tiny lips against her own, his hands clutching at her breast, his laugh sounding in her ears. Only the thought that someday soon she would be able to have him with her again comforted her, only the realization that she could not possibly make her way as fast towards that goal if he were with her restrained her from going back to Baltimore and taking him from the home.
Her Aunt Sophie was, she found, gifted with a fund of hard common sense but with it she possessed a warmth of feeling that made Mimi know the older woman understood all her difficulties without the necessity of putting into words her various moods. Mr. Rogers had held for a number of years before his death a responsible position in a bank down town. He had left his widow some money and a few shares of stock in various corporations that brought her a steady, but small, income. By practice of rigid economy Mrs. Rogers could have lived in fairly comfortable circumstances but she was unwilling to do this. She had married young and was of a more progressive nature than her brother, although she understood Jean as well as had Margot. After her husband’s death Mrs. Rogers had taken a course in manicuring, massaging and the treatment of the hair and scalp. She then had opened a small “beauty parlour,” from which she derived a small income after all expenses were paid. Best of all, it kept her busy, and that was of greater importance to her than the money she earned. With a widowed sister of her husband she kept a small flat near Lenox Avenue, and it was to this she welcomed Mimi. …