"Ah! no, hardly so," laughed the madame; "it is on a little street that I do find apartments for you, but it is nice there; I do hope you will be pleasured."
"Oh, I'm sure we will! Baby dear, don't chew your pretty cloak-strings, you will spoil them. Ah! is this the place?" as they whirled around a corner and stopped shortly in a narrow but clean court, surrounded by small, trim cottages with tiny squares of green in front.
The madame led them up a gravelled foot-path—there were no fences—to a door in one of these, which she opened and entered.
"Follow, follow!" she called out merrily, and flitted up the narrow, uncarpeted stairway. She stopped at the head of this, and stood till all had gathered about her in the dim little hall-way, then, with a graceful flourish, cried, "Behold then!" and threw wide a door.
There was a universal shout of satisfaction, which made the madame's eyes dance, while Sara's grew misty with feeling; for that kind little Frenchwoman had almost settled their rooms for them, doing all an outsider could do, so that the bare, homeless look many of us can remember when newly entering a tenantless house, was quite removed.
After the first pause of surprise, the children began running wildly about, while the madame and Sara took it more leisurely. "See," said the former, "it is here your sitting room, with three pleasant windows, and a bit of a fireplace under this wooden mantel. When it is dressed with something bright it will not so bare seem. Here are two cosey bedrooms with the air and light, and a so large closet between, besides this cunning little bath-apartment, which I know you will much prize. Then here," throwing open a door, "is your kitchen, with two fine windows, and this tiny range. Is it not pretty?"
She ran about, showing its conveniences, and explaining how these apartment-cottages were built by a humane society, to furnish comfortable homes for those who had little means, ending:—
"And the rent, my dear, it is so small—so very small—only a little ten dollars a month!"
It did not seem small to Sara, but she would not damp the madame's enthusiasm by saying so; and in time she learned to appreciate, and be grateful for, this really cosey flat at so low a rental.
"The family below is very nice," said madame; "their name it is Hoffstott, and he is a little German baker of much baldness on his head, but greatly smiling and pleasant; the wife is about the same in her width as she is in her height, and laughs with a big mouth, and white teeth fine to see; and they have two little girls with yellow braids, like that candy of molasses Miss Zeba did have in her windows—and all so clean! Ah!" with a charming gesture, "it do shine through every room with soap and sand, and the brush that scrubs!"