e
alone, and asked could he place me at some quiet retired table, he became
human, he looked straightly and kindly at me. He himself escorted me, not
to a seat in line with the kitchen smells or the pantry quarrels, as I
had expected, but to a very retired, very pleasant table by an open
window, and assured me the seat should be reserved for me every day of my
stay, and only ladies seated there. I was grateful from my heart, and I
mention it now simply to show the general willingness there is in America
to aid, to oblige the unprotected woman traveler.

Naturally anxious to find, as quickly as possible, a less expensive
dwelling-place, I showed my utter ignorance of the city by the blunder I
made in joyfully engaging rooms in a quiet old-fashioned brick house
because it was on Twenty-first Street and the theatre was on
Twenty-fourth, and the walk would be such a short one. All good New
Yorkers will know just how "short" that walk was when I add that to reach
the neat little brick house I had first to cross to Second Avenue, and,
alas! for me on stormy nights, there was no cross-town car, then.

However, the rooms were sunny and neatly furnished; the rent barely
within my reach, but the entire Kiersted family were so unaffectedly kind
and treated me so like a rather overweighted young sister that I could
not have been driven away from the house with a stick. I telegraphed to
mother to come. She came.

To the waiter who feeling the crown upon his brow yet treated me with
almost fatherly kindness, I gave a small parting offering and my thanks;
and to the chambermaid also--she with the pure complexion, bred from
buttermilk and potatoes, and the brogue rich and thick enough to cut
with a knife--who had "discoursed" to me at great length on religion, on
her own chances of matrimony, on the general plan of the city,
describing the "lay" of the diagonal avenues, their crossing streets and
occasional junctures, in such confusing terms that a listening
city-father would have sent out and borrowed a blind man's dog to help
him find his home. Still she had talked miles a day with the best
intentions, and I made my small offering to her in acknowledgment, and
leaving her very red with pleasure, I departed from the hotel. That
blessed evening found my mother and me house-keeping at last--_at last_!
And as we sat over our tea, little Bertie, on the piano-stool at my
side, ate buttered toast; then, feeling license in the air, slipped