“I fancy, Jessica——Is that your name?”
“Josephine, Mrs. Prentice; only they all call me Jess.”
“Very well—Jess. Sounds a good practical name—and you are a practical girl; I can see that. Now, Jess, I fancy you have to do something yourself toward moving, to get your mother started, eh?”
“Oh! but I don’t know where to go——”
The car began to slow down. Mrs. Prentice had run into a quiet side street, not two blocks from the cottage at the foot of Whiffle Street.
“See here,” said the lady, stopping the motor and preparing to alight. “I want you to see this little dove-cote—that’s what I have always called it. It is set behind a grassy front yard and there is a little garden at the back. You’ll love it in spring and summer.”
“Oh, but Mrs. Prentice, is it empty?”
“It’s too empty. That’s the trouble. The tenant I had left unexpectedly.” She neglected to say that she had paid the tenant a certain sum to leave the cottage and move into another house. “I don’t want the house empty during the cold weather. I have paid to have a fire kept up in the furnace for a week so that the pipes would not freeze. Come in.”
It was a dear little cottage; Jess Morse was delighted with it. And so much more convenient than Mr. Chumley’s. Besides, there was a good reason why the owner paid to have the fires kept up all this week of cold weather. Every room was fresh with paint and paper—the smell of varnish was still plain. It was really a delightful little place and the furniture at home would fit into the several rooms so nicely!
Jess Morse saw all this at once. She was delighted——And two dollars less a month than the cottage in which they had lived so long!