“Now, my dear,” cautioned Mrs. White, “you have promised me to keep calm, and not get any more spells. If you are so excited now, before we leave at all, how do you expect to keep calm when you get into the bustle of busy New York?”
So the girl tried to appear less agitated, but Dorothy could see that every nerve in the child’s frame was a-quiver with anticipation.
At last they were on the train. They would be in New York in one hour. Miette talked incessantly. What she would tell Marie—she would like to buy her a little present before she went to her store; then perhaps they could take Marie out to lunch—it was Marie, Marie, until both Mrs. White and Dorothy marvelled at this girl’s extreme affection for a little cash girl, when she professes such strong dislike for being considered one of the working class.
“Now,” said Mrs. White, as the train rolled into the great Grand Central station, “we will go first to the lawyers’. A day in New York passes quickly, and we have considerable to attend to during business hours.”
It seemed to Dorothy that even New York had grown busier and noisier—she used to think it impossible to add to these conditions, but surely at eleven o’clock on a business morning nothing could be more active than the great metropolis.
They boarded a subway car. This underground travel always excited Dorothy’s interest, “to think that little human beings could build beneath the great solid surface of New York, could fortify these immense caves with walls of huge stones,” she exclaimed to Miette, “don’t you think it marvelous?”
“Yes,” replied Miette simply, without evincing the slightest admiration for that part of the wonders of the nineteenth century’s achievements.
Then the tall buildings—like slices of another world suspended between the earth and sky. Dorothy had seen New York before, but the great American city never failed to excite in her a truly patriotic pride.
“Have you such things in France?” she asked Miette, by way of emphasizing the wonders.
“Some of them,” replied the French girl, “but what seems to me a pity is that you have nothing old in New York, everything is new and shiny. There is no—no history, you tear everything down just when it gets interesting. Marie told me one day that this is because there are so many insurance companies here. When people die you get a lot of money, then you buy a lot of new things.”