Eva already had one of her visions in her head; but of this she did not speak to Miss Dorcas till she had matured it.
She knew Jim Fellows had been for weeks on the keen chase after apartments, and that none yet had presented themselves as altogether eligible. Alice had insisted on an economical beginning, and the utmost prudence as to price; and the result had been, what is usual in such cases, that all the rooms that would do at all were too dear.
Eva saw at once in this suite of rooms, right across the way from them, the very thing they were in search of. The rooms were large and sunny, with a quaint, old-fashioned air of by-gone gentility that made them attractive; and her artist imagination at once went into the work of brightening up their tarnished and dusky respectability with a nice little modern addition of pictures and flowers, and new bits of furniture here and there.
Just as she returned from her survey, she found Jim in her own parlor, with a thriving pot of ivy.
"Well, here's one for our parlor window, when we find one," said he. "I'm a boy that gets things when I see them. Now you don't often see an ivy so thrifty as this, and I've brought it to you to take care of till I find the room!"
"Jim," said Eva, "I believe just what you want is to be found right across the way from us, so that we can talk across from your windows to ours."
"What! the old Vanderheyden house? Thunder!" said Jim.
Now, Jim was one of the class of boys who make free use of "thunder" in conversation, without meaning to express anything more by it than a state of slight surprise.
"What's up now?" he added. "I should as soon expect Queen Victoria to rent Buckingham Palace as that the old ladies across the way would come to letting rooms!"
"Necessity has no law, Jim." And then Eva told him Miss Dorcas's misfortune.