In fact since the DeVere family had come to make their home in the
Fenmore Apartment House, on one of the West Sixtieth streets of New
York City, there had been very little in the way of food luxuries,
and not a great deal of the necessities.
Their life had held a little more of ease and comfort when they lived
in a more fashionable quarter, but with the loss of their father's
theatrical engagement, and the long period of waiting for another,
their savings had been exhausted and they had had recourse to the
pawn shop, in addition to letting as many bills as possible go unpaid
until fortune smiled again.
Hosmer DeVere, who was a middle-aged, rather corpulent and
exceedingly kind and cultured gentleman, was the father of the two
girls. Their mother had been dead about seven years, a cold caught in
playing on a draughty stage developing into pneumonia, from which she
never rallied.
Ruth and Alice came of a theatrical family--at least, on their
father's side--for his father and grandfather before him had enviable
histrionic reputations. Mrs. DeVere had been a vivacious country
maid--or, rather, a maid in a small town that was classed as being on
the "country" circuit by the company playing it.
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