You know that a lady in a mob-cap and panniers is playing inside that shyly curtained window.

Hark! You can hear the thin, delicate notes quite plainly: this is such a quiet little street.

A piano rather out of tune?
Perish the thought! Dear friend, it is a spinet,--a harpsichord.
Almost you can smell pot-pourri.
Perhaps it was of such a house that H.C.Bunner wrote: _"We lived in a cottage in old Greenwich Village, With a tiny clay plot that was burnt brown and hard; But it softened at last to my girl's patient tillage, And the roses sprang up in our little backyard;"_ The garden hunger of the Village! It is something pathetic and yet triumphant, pitiful and also splendid.

It is joyous life and growth hoping in the most unpromising surroundings: it is eager and gallant hope exulting in the very teeth of defeat.

Do you remember John Reed's-- _"Below's the barren, grassless, earthen ring Where Madame, with a faith unwavering Planted a wistful garden every spring,-- Forever hoped-for,--never blossoming."_ Yet they do blossom, those hidden and usually unfruitful garden-places.