nk, and from the nature of
these I suspected occasional surrender and bribery on the part of the
Little Woman.

It was a place well down town that we chose. It was a second floor,
open in the rear, and there was sunlight most of the day. The rooms were
really better than the ones we had. They could not be worse, we
decided--a fallacy, for I have never seen a flat so bad that there could
not be a worse one--and the price was not much higher. Also, there was a
straight fireplace in the dining-room, which the Precious Ones described
as being "lovelly," and the janitress was a humble creature who had won
the Little Woman's heart by unburdening herself of numerous sad
experiences and bitter wrongs, besides a number of perfectly just
opinions concerning janitors, individually and at large.

Altogether the place seemed quite in accordance with our present views.
I paid a month's rent in advance the next morning, and during the day
the Little Woman engaged a moving man.

[Illustration: THE PRECIOUS ONES WERE RACING ABOUT AMONG BOXES AND
BARRELS IN UNALLOYED HAPPINESS.]

She was packing when I came home and the Precious Ones were racing about
among boxes and barrels in unalloyed happiness. It did not seem possible
that we had bought so much or that I could have put so many tacks in the
matting.

The moving men would be there with their van by daylight next morning,
she said. (It seems that the man at the office had told her that we
would have to get up early to get ahead of him, and she had construed
this statement literally.) So we toiled far into the night and then
crept wearily to bed in our dismantled nest, to toss wakefully through
the few remaining hours of darkness, fearful that the summons of the
forehanded and expeditious moving man would find us in slumber and
unprepared.

We were deeply grateful to him that he had not arrived before we had
finished our early and scrappy breakfast. Then presently, when we were
ready for him and he did not appear, we were still appreciative, for we
said to each other that he was giving us a little extra time so that we
would not feel upset and hurried. Still, it would be just as well if he
would come, now, so that we might get moved and settled before night.

It had been a bright, pleasant morning, but as the forenoon advanced the
sky darkened and it grew bitterly cold. Gloom settled down without and
the meager steam supply was scarcely noticeable in our bare apartment.
The Pre