New York City is a costly destination remembered through hotel prices, an unexpectedly expensive breakfast, and the Devereaux family’s trip after William Henry Devereaux, Sr. collapsed. Its brief presence in the narrative links the father’s hospitalization to his return to Railton, while the expense of staying there shapes Charles Purty’s account of the family’s reunion.

Family Visit and Return

After hearing that William Henry Devereaux, Sr. had collapsed, William Henry Devereaux, Jr. and his mother went to New York City. His father was in the hospital and heavily sedated, so although the visit had taken place only a couple of months earlier, William Henry Devereaux, Jr. felt that he had not truly seen his father in about five years. The distinction underscores how illness and estrangement had made physical proximity an inadequate substitute for a genuine encounter. By the time William Henry Devereaux, Jr. speaks with Charles Purty, his mother and father are back at her place. Charles explains that avoiding a New York City hotel was part of the practical appeal: the cost of a room there had mattered during the couple’s stay. The city thus appears not as a fully depicted setting but as the recent point of departure for the parents’ return to Railton.

Cost and Narrative Function

Charles’s complaints extend from hotel rooms to food. Over breakfast, he remarks that the plate of eggs before them would cost thirteen or fourteen dollars in New York City. The comparison gives his grumbling a concrete measure and makes the city’s expense part of an ordinary conversation about food, money, and where people choose to live. For William Henry Devereaux, Jr., the reference to New York City also sharpens the emotional distance surrounding his father’s return. The trip followed the collapse, but sedation meant that the son’s latest visit did not feel like a real meeting; Charles, who has now seen the returned couple together, recognizes a closeness between them that he had been reluctant to accept. New York City therefore anchors a recent family episode while the conversation in Railton reveals its personal consequences.