Vanitatum_ is written
upon its walls.

XIII.

_A Home at Last._

We began reading advertisements at once and took jaunts to "see
property." The various investment companies supplied free transportation
on these occasions. It was a pleasant variation from the old days of
flat hunting. The Precious Ones, who remembered with joy our former
brief suburban experiment, appreciated it, and raced shouting through
rows of new "instalment houses" with nice lawns, all within the
commutation limits. We settled on one, at last, through an agency which
the trolley-man referred to as the "Reality Trust."

The cash-payment was small and the instalments, if long continued, were
at least not discouraging as to size. We had a nice wide lawn with green
grass, a big, dry cellar with a furnace, a high, light garret, and eight
beautiful light rooms, all our own. At the back there were clothes-poles
and room for a garden. In front there was a long porch with a place for
a hammock. There was room in the yard for the Precious Ones to romp, as
well as space to spread out our rugs. We closed the bargain at once, and
engaged a moving man. Our Flat days were over.

And now fortune seemed all at once to smile. The day of our last move
was perfect. The moving man came exactly on time and delivered our
possessions at the new home on the moment of our arrival there. The
Little Woman superintended matters inside, while I spread out my rugs on
the grass in the sun and shook them and swept them and scolded the
Precious Ones, who were inclined to sit on the one I was handling, to my
heart's content. Within an hour the butcher, the baker, and the merry
milk-maker had called and established relations. By night-fall we were
fairly settled--our furniture, so crowded in a little city apartment,
airily scattered through our eight big, beautiful rooms, and our rugs,
all fresh and clean, reaching as far as they would go, suggesting new
additions to our collection whenever the spell of the dark-faced
Armenians in their dim oriental Broadway recess should assert itself
during the years to come.

[Illustration: OUR GARDEN FLOURISHED.]

Sweet spring days followed. We fairly reveled in seed catalogues, and
our garden flourished. Our neighbors, instead of borrowing our loose
property, as we had been led to expect by the comic papers, literally
overwhelmed us with garden tools and good advice. We needed both,
certainly, and were duly thankful.

As for