and they must not care what floor it was on. But the cheapest room with board was fourteen dollars a week, and Marcia had fixed her ideal at ten: even that was too high for them.
"The best way will be to go back to the Revere House, at seven dollars a day," said Bartley. He had lately been leaving the transaction of the business entirely to Marcia, who had rapidly acquired alertness and decision in it.
She could not respond to his joke. "What is there left?" she asked.
"There isn't anything left," he said. "We've got to the end."
They stood on the edge of the pavement and looked up and down the street, and then, by a common impulse, they looked at the house opposite, where a placard in the window advertised, "Apartments to Let—to Gentlemen only."
"It would be of no use asking there," murmured Marcia, in sad abstraction.
"Well, let's go over and try," said her husband. "They can't do more than turn us out of doors."
"I know it won't be of any use," Marcia sighed, as people do when they hope to gain something by forbidding themselves hope. But she helplessly followed, and stood at the foot of the door-steps while he ran up and rang.
It was evidently the woman of the house who came to the door and shrewdly scanned them.
"I see you have apartments to let," said Bartley.
"Well, yes," admitted the woman, as if she considered it useless to deny it, "I have."
"I should like to look at them," returned Bartley, with promptness. "Come, Marcia." And, reinforced by her, he invaded the premises before the landlady had time to repel him. "I'll tell you what we want," he continued, turning into the little reception-room at the side of the door, "and if you haven't got it, there's no need to trouble you. We want a fair-sized room, anywhere between the cellar-floor and the roof, with a bed and a stove and a table in it, that sha'n't cost us more than ten dollars a week, with board."
"Set down," said the landlady, herself setting the example by sinking into the rocking-chair behind her and beginning to rock while she made a brief study of the intruders. "Want it for yourselves?"
"Yes," said Bartley.
"Well," returned the landlady, "I always have preferred single gentlemen."
"I inferred as much from a remark which you made in your front window," said Bartley, indicating the placard.
The landlady smiled. They were certainly a very pretty-appearing young couple, and the gentleman was evidently up-and-coming. Mrs. Nash liked Bartley, as most people of her grade did, at once. "It's always be'n my exper'ence," she explained, with the lazily rhythmical drawl in which most half-bred New-Englanders speak, "that I seemed to get along rather better with gentlemen. They give less trouble—as a general rule," she added, with a glance at Marcia, as if she did not deny that there were exceptions, and Marcia might be a striking one.
Bartley seized his advantage. "Well, my wife hasn't been married long enough to be unreasonable. I guess you'd get along."
They both laughed, and Marcia, blushing, joined them.
"Well, I thought when you first come up the steps you hadn't been married—well, not a great while," said the landlady.
"No," said Bartley. "It seems a good while to my wife; but we were only married day before yesterday."
"The land!" cried Mrs. Nash.
"Bartley!" whispered Marcia, in soft upbraiding.
"What? Well, say last week, then. We were married last week, and we've come to Boston to seek our fortune."
His wit overjoyed Mrs. Nash. "You'll find Boston an awful hard place to get along," she said, shaking her head with a warning smile.
"I shouldn't think so, by the price Boston people ask for their rooms," returned Bartley. "If I had rooms to let, I should get along pretty easily."
This again delighted the landlady. "I guess you aint goin' to get out of spirits, anyway," she said. "Well," she continued, "I have got a room 't I guess would suit you. Unexpectedly vacated." She seemed to recur to the language of an advertisement in these words, which she pronounced as if reading them. "It's pretty high up," she said, with another warning shake of the head.
"Stairs to get to it?" asked Bartley.
"Plenty of stairs."
"Well, when a place is pretty high up, I like to have plenty of stairs to get to it. I guess we'll see it, Marcia." He rose.
"Well, I'll just go up and see if it's fit to be seen, first," said the landlady.
"Oh, Bartley!" said Marcia, when she had left them alone, "how could you joke so about our just being married!"
"Well, I saw she wanted awfully to ask. And anybody can tell by looking at us, anyway. We can't keep that to ourselves, any more than we can our greenness. Besides, it's money in our pockets; she'll take something off our board for it, you'll see. Now, will you manage the bargaining from this on? I stepped forward because the rooms were for gentlemen only."
"I guess I'd better," said Marcia.
"All right; then I'll take a back seat from this out."
"Oh, I do hope it won't be too much!" sighed the young wife. "I'm so tired, looking."
"You can come right along up," the landlady called down through the oval spire formed by the ascending hand-rail of the stairs.
They found her in a broad, low room, whose ceiling sloped with the roof, and had the pleasant irregularity of the angles and recessions of two dormer windows. The room was clean and cosey; there was a table, and a stove that could be used open or shut; Marcia squeezed Bartley's arm to signify that it would do perfectly—if only the price would suit.
The landlady stood in the middle of the floor and lectured: "Now, there! I get five dollars a week for this room; and I gen'ly let it to two gentlemen. It's just been vacated by two gentlemen unexpectedly; and it's hard to get gentlemen at this time the year; and that's the reason I thought of takin' you. As I say, I don't much like ladies for inmates, and so I put in the window 'for gentlemen only.' But it's no use bein' too particular; I can't have the room layin' empty on my hands. If it suits you, you can have it for four dollars. It's high up, and there's no use tryin' to deny it. But there aint such another view as them winders commands anywheres. You can see the harbor, and pretty much the whole coast."
"Anything extra for the view?" said Bartley, glancing out.
"No, I throw that in."
"Does the price include gas and fire?" asked Marcia, sharpened as to all details by previous interviews.
"It includes the gas, but it don't include the fire," said the landlady, firmly. "And it's pretty low at that, as you've found out, I guess."
"Yes, it is low," said Marcia. "Bartley, I think we'd better take it."
She looked at him timidly, as if she were afraid he might not think it good enough; she did not think
