[CHAPTER XXI.]
FRANK VISITS COTTAGE PLACE.
Cottage Place is one of the by-ways.
No man in his sober senses would attempt to describe it otherwise.
Starting from Bleecker street, and running in a winding manner south-easterly to Houston, it affords with its snug little dwellings, its blossoming gardens in the grass-plat centers before the low, red brick cottages, from which it derives its name, a quiet abode for a few old-time families of moderate means, whose necessities compel them to live and maintain some show of respectability in this most undesirable quarter of New York.
But the flowers do not blossom in the winter before the brick dwellings of Cottage Place, and as the evening we are about to speak of is that of the day upon which Miss Edna Callister visited her father's office in Broad street, winter is the season with which we have to deal.
It was still early—the factory whistles had not yet blown for six, when the lithe, well-dressed figure of Maxwell, Mr. Callister's new clerk might have been seen to drop from a Bleecker street car, and, turning into Cottage Place, enter the gate of the snug little cottage bearing the number "9" over its doorway, and hastily ring the bell.
Notwithstanding the fact that it was already dark, he seemed to display a familiarity with the house and its surroundings which indicated with perfect plainness that this was by no means his first visit.
Standing upon the little stoop while awaiting the answer to his ring, the eyes of the young man wandered toward the windows of the first or parlor floor, which, as the house was without basement, stood but slightly raised from the level of the ground.
The blinds were thrown back, but the curtains were drawn, a light burning brightly, suggesting a comfortable, home-like interior within.