A Hazard of New Fortunes, Part First

ey were used to staying at this hotel when they came on for a little outing in New York, after some rigid winter in Boston, at the time of the spring exhibitions. They were remembere

ebonized furniture, was the lightest of the rooms, but it was not very light at noonday without the gas, which the bell-boy now flared up for them. The uproar of the city came to it in a soothing murmur, and they took possession of its peace and comfort with open celebration. After all, they agreed, there was

husband, as he came out of his room rubbing his face red with the towel,

could get on perfectly well without us, and could find some lot in

sted. I should insist upon that. If they are, don

point; it's simply

these three rooms somehow, for the winter, and then browse about for meals. By the week we could

e any trouble. We can easily find some one who is going South for the winter and will be glad to give up their flat 'to the right party' at a

n New York, that is one merit of the place. But if everything else fails, we can come back to this. I want you to take the refusal of it, Basi

inute advertisements pinned transversely upon it, and for

up and down the list. "But we sha'n't have any trouble. I've no doubt there are half a dozen things

es one think of 'jam yesterday and jam tomorrow, but never jam to-

ar up the middle, when Fulkerson came stepping square-footedly over the thick dining-room carpet. He wagged in the air a gay hand of salutation at sight of them, and of repression when they offere

ou, sure enough," he said, beaming his s

we alone did it. But here we are, looking for shelter, an

among the caciques a little, and I think I've got two or three places

l, and very proud to be left i

en at the best. "Here are some things right in this neighborhood, within gunshot of the office, and if

antly," said Mrs. March. "Or, as

l you, March, things are humming. I'm after those fellows with a sharp stick all the while to keep them from loafing on my house, and

akfast," said Mrs.

you've secured your lodge in t

kerson," she said, "to keep us in mind

you in mind, Mrs. March," said Fulkerson, going off up

can go back to the children to-morrow if we like, though I rather think I should like to stay over another day and get a little rested for the final pulling up that's got to come. But this simplifies everything enormously, and Mr. Fulkerson is as thoughtful and

portant to do

an elevator and steam heat, not above the third floor, to begin with. Then we must each have a room, and you must have your stu

en

unny, though I've always given them two at home. And the kitchen must be sunny, so they can sit in it. And the rooms must all have outside light. And the rent must not be over eight hundr

or if you forget a third of it, I can come in

let them into the street, and the clear October evening air brightened her so that as she tucked her hand under her husband's arm and began to pull him along

ney (each note crushed into a round wad), and had left it on the hat-rack, where it would certainly be stolen, she found it on her wrist. She did not think that very funny;

your glasse

l in our room

to have brought

here!" she cried, whirling round to the door before which they ha

the premises by the bow with which he acknowledged their permit. It was a large, old mansion cut up into five or six dwellings, but it had kept some traits of its former dignity, which pleased people of th

tor?" Mrs. March a

only two flights up," s

her husband, as she followed lightly up, "W

like him,

ophized. "If I had such a creature, nothing but death should p

afford it," ret

its charm, its pathos, its impressiveness. Where they were cut up into smaller spaces, it had been done with the frankness with which a proud old family of fallen fortunes practises its economies. The rough pine-floors showed a black border of tack-heads where carpets had been lifted and put down for generations; the white paint was yellow with age; the apartment had light at the front and at the back, and two or three ro

ut dere's grates in most o' de rooms,

amily in the apartments, it was hard to get them out

team heat if-What is the rent?"

hundre

o his wife, "If i

a furnished flat," she explained to the janitor, "and this was so pleas

er flattering oversight on the way down-stairs that she said, as she pinched her husba

ment outside. "If it hadn't been for my strength of character, you'd have taken an unfurnished flat without heat and with

he said, with a lenient amusement in her aberration w

us, I'll tell him the apartment doesn't suit at the

ne of them that didn't have perfectly angelic manners. I th

e usual theory

ented. "Where are we going n

ime to exchange a frightened whisper in recognition of the fact that there could be no doubt of the steam heat and elevator in this case. Half stifled in the one, they mounted in the other eight stories, while they tried to keep their self-respect under the gaze of the superintendent, which they felt was classing and assessing them with unfriendly accuracy. They could not, and they faltered abashed at the threshold of Mrs. Grosvenor Green's apartment, while the superintendent lit the gas in the gangway that he called a private hall, and in the drawing-room and the succession of chambers stretching rearward to the kitchen. Everything had been done by the architect to save space, and everything, to waste it by Mrs. Grosvenor Green. She had conformed to a law for the necessity of turning round in each room, and had folding-beds in the chambers, but there her subordination had ended, and wherever you might have turned round she had pu

from the top of either andiron, and a brass peacock spread its tail before them inside a high filigree fender; on one side was a coalhod in 'repousse' brass, and on the other a wrought iron

e presence of the agglomeration, comforted himself by callin

is joke strengthened him to say boldly to the superintendent that it

dred and

a start, and look

saved five hundred dollars as the difference between the rent of their house and that of th

like it for no two-fifty a month in the

ain, and March said, care

ne in the Thucydides for fifteen," the superintendent suggested, clicking

rch; "we're looking

intendent parted from th

lly made him think it was the s

f-respect in the attempt;

only six rooms, and so high up. But what prices! No

her son would show them the flat. There was a radiator visible in the narrow hall, and Isabel tacitly compromised on steam heat without an elevator, as the flat was only one flight up. When the son appeared from below with a small kerosene hand-lamp, it appe

lats that Mr. Fulkerson thought would be the very thin

him my Mr. Fulker

h

h was a furnished house. At the sixth a pathetic widow and her pretty daughter wanted to take a family to

I must say I have completely lost confidence in Mr. Fulkerson's judgment. Anything more utterly different from what I told him we wan

the human habitation that corrupts the natures of those who deal in it, to buy or sell it, to hire or let it. You go to an agent and tell him what kind of a house you want. He has no such house, and he sends you to look at something altogether different, upon the we

ve that!" his

see what a scandalous

alf; and, besides, the agent to

. I'm only analyzing the house-a

wanted; and, at any rate, I'm done with agents.