"Better do the town to-day," he suggested. "Just go round and get a general view—Broadway, Fifth Avenue, the shops, and all that. Then to-night you'd better go to the play. I think you'd enjoy 'The White Cat' as much as anything."
Armed with definite information as to the most direct route to Broadway, Mr. Smith sought his bride. He found her in the corridor, watching the people come and go, her thin face flushed and animated.
"Oh, Henry," she cried, eagerly, "I declare I'm having the most interestin' time! Those folks over there—you know, the ones that has the room next to ours—ain't spoke to each other sence breakfast. Do you think they've quarrelled, the poor dears?"
He gave but perfunctory attention to "the poor dears," his duties as prospective cicerone filling his thoughts. Maria's face fell as he outlined their plans for the day.
"Well, if you feel to go, Henry," she said, doubtfully, "but it's SO interestin' here. I feel 's if I knew all these folks. I wish we could stay here this mornin', anyhow, 'n' not git out in those dreadful crowded streets jest yet."
He sat down beside her with a promptness which evoked a startled shriek from an absorbed young person reading near them.
"Then we'll stay right here," he announced, kindly. "We're here, 'Ria, to do jest what you want, an' we're goin' to do it."
She gave him an adoring look, and under its radiance Mr. Smith promptly forgot the small claims of Broadway. Siberia with Maria in it would have blossomed like the rose for Henry Smith, and the wide, cheerful corridors of the Berkeley were far removed from Siberia's atmosphere. Side by side and blissfully happy, they whiled the morning hours away. After luncheon Henry again tentatively touched on sight-seeing.
"'Tain't far," he said. He consulted the slip of directions the clerk had given him, and went on expansively, "We take the cross-town line at Fifty-ninth Street, transfer to a Broadway car—"
Maria shivered. "My, Henry," she quavered, "that sounds dreadful mixed.
I'm afraid we'll get lost."