Arriving at the corner of Fifth Avenue, and successfully dodging many vehicles, they got safely on the opposite corner just in time to catch a speeding auto ’bus. Up to the roof they climbed.
“Isn’t it too delightful!” sighed Tavia, blissfully.
“We’ll come down town on a ’bus every day,” declared Dorothy.
They passed all the millionaires’ palatial residences in blissful ignorance of whom the palaces sheltered. They didn’t care which rich man occupied one mansion or another, they were happy enough riding on top of a ’bus.
Tavia simply gushed when they reached the Drive and a cutting sharp breeze blew across the Hudson river.
“I never imagined New York City had anything so lovely as this; I thought it was all tall buildings and smoky atmosphere and—lights!” declared Tavia.
Along the river all was quiet and luxurious and wonderful. The auto ’bus stopped before a small apartment house—that is, it was small comparatively. The front was entirely latticed glass and white marble. A bell boy rushed forward to relieve them of their bags, another took their wraps and a third respectfully held open the reception hall door. Down this hall, lined on two sides with growing plants, Aunt Winnie’s party marched in haughty silence. They were afraid to utter an unseemly word. Tavia’s little chin went up into the air—the bell boys were very appalling—but they shouldn’t know of the visitors’ suburban origin if Tavia could help it. They were assisted on the elevator by a dignified liveried man, and up into the air they shot, landing, breathless, in a perfectly equipped tiny hall. At home, of course, one would call it a tiny hall, but in a New York apartment house it was spacious and roomy.
Still another person, this time a woman, in spotless white, opened the door and into the door Aunt Winnie disappeared, and the others followed, although they were not at all sure it was the proper thing to do.
Then Tavia gasped. In her loveliest dreams of a home, she had never dreamed of anything as perfectly beautiful as this. Little bowers of pink and white, melted into other little rooms of gold and green and blue, and then a velvety stretch of something, which Tavia afterward discovered was a hall, led them into a kitchenette.
“Do people eat here?” said the dazed Tavia.