It looks more like Richmond in old times than it does like New York." Beyond the grass and weeds, over which Gabriella was gazing, the street was so quiet for the moment that it might have been one of those forgotten squares in Richmond (she had never called them blocks) where needy gentlewomen still practised "light housekeeping" in the social twilight of the last century.

Now and then a tired man or woman slouched by from work; once a newsboy stopped at the gate to shout the name of his paper in belligerent accents; and a few wagons or a clanging car passed rapidly in the direction of Broadway.

From the corner of Ninth Avenue the elevated road, which seemed to her at times the only permanent thing in her surroundings, still roared and rumbled its disturbing undercurrent in her life.
"I think we shall be quite comfortable here," she said, watching the last piece of furniture pass through the door.

"Where are the children ?" The air had the rich softness of summer, and the roving fragrance from the old garden rose-bush by the steps awakened a strange homesickness in her heart--that mysterious homesickness which the spring gives us for places we have never seen.
"The children are upstairs fixing their rooms," replied Miss.

Polly, stooping to pluck up a weed by the roots.