Bowery?"

"I have not that honor," was the haughty reply, the lady drawing up
her costly shawl and moving a little away from her interlocutor, who
continued: "I thought like enough you might have seen 'Tilda, or Mattie
she calls herself now. She is a right nice girl, and Tom is a very
forrard boy."

To this there was no reply; and as the lady soon left the car, Aunt
Betsy did not make another attempt at conversation, except to ask once
how far they were from the Bowery, adding, as she received a civil
answer, "You don't know Mr. Peter Tubbs?"

The worthy man was evidently a stranger to the occupants of that car,
and so Aunt Betsy employed her time in wondering if they kept up a sight
of style. She presumed they did from what 'Tilda had written to one of
Captain Perry's girls about their front parlor, and back parlor, and
library; but she did so hope their boarders were not the stuck up kind.
In Mrs. Peter Tubbs herself she had the utmost confidence, knowing her
to be a kind, friendly woman; and so her heart did not beat quite as
fast as it would otherwise have done when the car stopped at last upon
a crossing, and the conductor pointed back a few doors to the right,
telling her that was her number.

"I should s'pose he might have driv right up, instead of leaving me
here," she said, looking wistfully at the retreating car, which now
seemed almost like home. "Coats, and trousers, and jackets! I wonder if
there is nothing else to be seen here," she continued, as her eye caught
the long line of clothing so conspicuously displayed in that part of the
Bowery. "'Tain't no great shakes," was the feeling struggling into Aunt
Betsy's mind, as with Tom's outline map in hand she peered at the
numbers of the doors, finding the right one at last, and ringing the
bell with a force which brought Mattie at once to the rescue.

If Mattie was not glad to see her guest, she seemed to be, which
answered every purpose for the tired woman, who followed her into the
dark, narrow hall, filled with the sickly odor of the kitchen, and up
the narrow stairs, through a still darker hall, and into the front
parlor, which looked out upon the Bowery. This was comparatively
comfortable, for there was a fire in the stove, and the carpet the same
which Aunt Betsy remembered to have seen in Mrs. Tubbs' best room at
Silverton. But the diminutive dimensions of the apartment struck her at
once, and she mentally decided that it must be the "libry." But,