As soon as she had closed the door Judy lifted her cat out of the hatbox. With a grateful noise, halfway between a purr and a yowl, Blackberry leaped to the floor and began, at once, to explore the rooms.
“His padded feet were made for soft carpets,” Judy said fondly.
“How do you suppose he’d like gravel?” Pauline asked.
“Oh, he’d love it!” Judy exclaimed. “You know our cellar floor is covered with gravel, and he sleeps down there.”
“Is this gravel in the cellar?” Irene asked, beginning to get an attack of shivers.
Pauline laughed. “Goodness, no! It’s on the roof garden.” She walked across the room and flung open a door. “Nothing shivery about that, is there?”
“Nothing except the thought of standing on the top of one of those tall buildings,” Irene said, gazing upward as she followed Pauline.
The view fascinated Judy. Looking out across lower New York, she found a new world of gray buildings and flickering lights. In the other direction the Empire State Building loomed like a sentinel.
“I never dreamed New York was like this,” she breathed.
“It grows on a person,” Pauline declared. “I would never want to live in any other city. No matter how bored or how annoyed I may be during the day, at night I can always come up here and feel the thrill of having all this for a home.”