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Lifting his sensitive young face, he stared up at
the row of decaying tenements. "What places for homes!"
For a moment Darrow looked at him without speaking; and then he
answered in a voice which sounded as impersonal as the distant rumble of
street cars. "I thought you might be interested because these houses,
these and the other rows on the next block or two, are part of the
Culpeper estate."
"The Culpeper estate?" repeated Stephen in an expressionless tone; and
raising his eyes again he looked up at the bleak houses. In that
instant, it seemed to him that he was seeing, not the sharp projection
of the roofs against the ashen sky, but a long line of pleasant and
prosperous generations. Beyond him stood his father, beyond his father
stood his grandfather, beyond the tranquil succession of his
grandfathers stood--what? Civilization? Humanity?
"Do you mean," he asked quietly, "that we--our family--own these
houses?"
"The whole block, and the next, and the next. It is the Culpeper estate.


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