“I’ve always lived in the city,” said Tom; “so I’ve got my eye-teeth cut. They can’t cheat me easy.”
“I’m afraid I’m selfish in taking you with me,” said Mrs. Parmenter. “I hope your friends won’t be alarmed at your coming home late.”
“I don’t think they will,” said Tom, laughing.
“You said you had no relatives living in the city?”
“Not now. My granny’s just left New York. She’s travellin’ for her health,” added Tom, with a burst of merriment, at which Mrs. Parmenter was rather surprised.
“Where has she gone?”
“Out West. I went a little way with her, just to oblige. She was awful sorry to part with me, granny was;” and Tom laughed again in a manner that quite puzzled her companion, who mentally decided that Tom was a very odd girl indeed.
“After we get to Mrs. Thurston’s,” said Mrs. Parmenter, “I’ll tell the driver to carry you home. Shall I?”
Tom fancied the sensation she would produce in Mulberry Street, if she should drive up to the door of the humble tenement house in which she boarded, and declined the offer. She might have accepted, for the joke of it, but she saw that the hackman took her for a young lady, and she did not wish to let him discover the unfashionable locality in which she made her home.
“Never mind,” said Tom. “I’d just as lieves ride in the cars.”