When Jacob West suggested to Henry Smith that the latter's honeymoon should be spent in New York, Mr. Smith's ruddy countenance paled at the audacity of the words, and Miss Maria Tuttle, his fiancee, gasped audibly for breath. Unconsciously they clasped hands, as if better to meet together the rude shock of the moment; and seated side by side on the rustic bench which adorned the small veranda of the Tuttle homestead, they gazed helplessly at the speaker. Slowly and with the stiffness of age Jacob sat down on the steps below them and looked up at their startled faces with a twinkle in his dim old eyes. His enjoyment of the moment was intense.

"Why not?" he demanded, cajolingly and argumentatively. "Ain't yeh old enough t' have a good time? Ain't yeh waited long enough? Ain't yeh"—he turned directly to Maria—"bin nursin' yer poor mother fer six years past an' wearin' yerself out, an' ain't yeh bin sewin' day an' night fer three months, ever sence she died, t' git ready t' marry Henry?" He drew a long breath of gratification over the respectful silence which greeted these adroit points, and went on with hortatory sympathy. "Yeh bin a good daughter, Maria. They ain't no better in Clayton Centre. Yeh deserve th' best they is. Now be good t' yerself an' Henry. Let him take yeh to New York an' give yeh a good time on the weddin' tower."

Miss Tuttle blushed faintly. She was forty-five, and looked ten years older. She was a tired, worn out, faded little woman, drained of her youth and vitality by the hourly exactions of the fault-finding invalid mother whom she had so recently laid away in the church-yard with unselfish filial tears. But there was something attractive in the sweet patience of her thin face, and the look in her brown eyes as she turned them on her faithful middle-aged lover was one of the trump cards her sex has played since Eve first used it as she accompanied Adam to the gate out of paradise. In her embarrassment she laughed a little, consciously.

"Mebbe Henry don't want to go," she began. "He ain't said nothing about
New York."

Henry whirled abruptly till he faced her on the rustic seat.

"Go! You bet I want to go!" he ejaculated, with fervor. "Don't I just—you bet I do. Say, Maria"—he fumbled nervously with the thin hand he still held in his own—"say, let's go."

Jacob West cackled delightedly. "That's the talk!" he cried, his thin, high tones taking on a shriller note in his excitement. "You jest do it, Henry! You make her! Neither of yeh'll be sorry, I swan!"

They sat silent, reflecting, and the old fellow rose slowly and painfully, instinctive delicacy telling him that, having done his part, it behooved him to leave them alone to solve for themselves the question he had raised. It was hard to go, but he went, chuckling reminiscently as he recalled the excited look on their faces and pictured the lively debate which would follow his departure.

It was a warm October evening, and the little village lay silent under the early stars. A light wind sang a droning lullaby in the grove of pines back of the Tuttle home, and a few belated birds twittered sleepily in near-by trees. Unconsciously Maria voiced the subtle charm of the hour when she spoke.

"I dunno, Henry," she said, lingeringly—"I dunno's I feel to go. Seems like we ought to be content to stay right here, where it's so quiet an' restful."

Her eyes roamed lovingly down the garden paths, lingering on trees and shrubs planted by Tuttle hands now a part of earth themselves. "I'm so glad you're comin' here," she sighed, happily. "I don't b'lieve you know yet how glad I am, Henry—not t' leave the old place."

He waived the discussion of this side interest, already settled between them.

"It'll be jest as nice when we come back from New York," he argued, logically, "an' jest as quiet."

The feminine intellect beside him took another tack on the sea of uncertainty with which old Jacob had surrounded it.

"Mebbe we can't afford it," she hazarded. "Prices is very high in New York, Henry. Joseph Hadley's daughter went there four years ago with her aunt, and she told me with her own lips they had to pay a dollar a day for their room at the hotel, without no meals. The hotel man wanted seventy-five cents apiece for dinner, so they paid it once a day an' the rest of the time they went into lunch-rooms an' had milk an' crackers. But with one dollar for the room, and another dollar 'n' a half for dinner, an' the crackers an' milk besides, they spent 'most twenty dollars the very first week. They had to come right straight home, 'n' they'd meant to stay two weeks."

Henry Smith's strong jaw set rather obstinately.

"I guess we won't have to come home till we git ready," he remarked, easily, "an' I guess we'll git our three meals a day, too. I don't see myself eatin' no milk an' crackers, nor you, neither. I guess I 'ain't bin savin' all these years, with a good carpenter business, without gittin' somethin' ahead. Say, 'Ria"—it was he who blushed now, his round face close to hers—"yeh can have anything yeh want. I'm that glad t' git yeh at last, I'd spend all I have!"

Her thin hand responded for an instant to the pressure of his and then coyly withdrew itself. She had few words at any time and none in moments of emotion, but he knew her and was satisfied.

"You've bin so good, Henry," she said, at last; "you've bin awful patient all these years. Fur's I'm concerned, I'd as lief stay here's anywhere, but if you want to go t' New York, I—I—want to do what yeh say."

"Then we'll go," he said, quietly; and the great question was settled.

When Mr. and Mrs. Henry Smith arrived in New York on the evening of their wedding-day, it is doubtful which of them was the more dazed and frightened by the bustle and confusion at the Grand Central station. Maria had at least the support of her husband's nearness to sustain her, and the comparative peace of mind of the one who, though facing untoward conditions, is without personal responsibility; but Henry experienced, in addition to his self-distrust, a sickening fear of failure in her presence. He was conscious of two dominant thoughts. Whatever happened, he must take care of his wife and spurn the advances of agreeable strangers. Also he and she must be transported by hack to the hotel they had chosen, without parting with the savings of years for the ride. He had heard of the extortions of cabmen. He bargained fiercely with a too-zealous independent who had already grasped his hand-bag and was leading the way to his cab, past the more inexpensive cabs supplied by the railroad company.

"You don't git one cent more'n two dollars for taking us, I can tell you that," announced Henry Smith, firmly but breathlessly, as he climbed clumsily into the cab after his wife. The hotel was in the fifties, and the cabman had intended to charge a dollar for the ride. He promptly protested against Mr. Smith's offer, however, inquiring anxiously if the gentleman wished an honest cabman's family to go supperless to bed. It appeared that the gentleman was indifferent to the fate of the cabman's family.

"You'll do it for two dollars or you'll let us git out," was his final word. As one overcome by superior force, the cabman yielded, climbed sulkily to his perch, and, bestowing a large, comprehensive wink upon the by-standers, started for the hotel his fare had indicated. Mr. Smith's spirits rose. Obviously, in this triumph he had demonstrated his fitness to cope with all the other grinding monopolies of New York. He smiled proudly at his wife as they drove toward Broadway, and his confidence grew as he discovered that he recognized the Times Building at the first glance and could also recognize the Hotel Astor by its resemblance to the picture of it in the Clayton Centre Weekly. At one point in their progress up-town the cab was caught in a crush of vehicles and Mrs. Henry Smith was privileged, for the first time in her life, to listen to the untrammelled conversation of New York cabmen on an occasion when they set their moral shoulders against congested traffic, knowing that it helps THEM, at all events. She shuddered and clung to Henry's arm. It was all too plain that they were in the vortex of godlessness, but even as the realization of this was borne to her on the winged speech of the driver, Mrs. Smith was conscious of an inward thrill. It was awful, but it was life—not life as lived in Clayton Centre, but certainly a life that already gained in excitement and interest from that fact. Unconsciously craning her thin neck farther out of the cab window, she drank in with a fearful joy the roar and excitement of Broadway, the shouts of drivers, the clang of trolley-cars. Her faded eyes gleamed as she saw the brilliant lights of the great thoroughfare whose illuminated signs met her glance at every turn.

Arrived at the hotel, the cabman accepted the two dollars, dumped the bride's trunk on the sidewalk, and drove off with an alacrity designed to prevent any further discussion of rates. Mr. Smith surrendered his hand-bag to the bell-boy who was reaching out impatient hands for it, grasped his wife's arm, and, following his small guide, walked firmly into the presence of the hotel clerk. It was a trying moment for him as he dragged that aloof personality down to his level, but details were arranged with surprising ease, barring so strange a lack of sympathy. As soon as he had expressed his few and simple wishes he found himself and his wife being guided to a lift, and with wonderful simplicity put in possession of a comfortable room on the third floor. Here the shades were drawn down, a pitcher of ice-water was hospitably placed on the stand, and a cheery fire was started on the small hearth. Over this last extravagance the bride faintly demurred, but Henry silenced her with his simple grandeur of insistence. It was a cool November evening, and he had noticed that she shivered in her thin wrap as they drove up-town.

"I jest intend makin' yeh comfortable," he announced, masterfully.

It was something of an ordeal to go down to dinner half an hour later, but they met it bravely, walking stiffly into the crowded dining-room, and looking to neither the right nor the left as they followed the headwaiter to their places. The discovery that they had exclusive possession of a small table was a matter of joyful surprise to them both, on which they freely commented. The daintiness of the linen, the gleam of silver, the perfection of the service, and the soft glow of candles under silk shades, filled their simple country souls with awe. It suggested unconjectured expense with a tang of wickedness as well. Off in an alcove, screened by palms, an orchestra played with considerate softness. Mr. Smith smiled a large, expansive smile and leaned back in his chair. The moment was perfect. His apprehensions were over for the time. Maria was with him, she was his, and he was giving her all this. Could an Astor or a Vanderbilt offer more to the woman of his heart? Henry Smith looked at the plush and gilding about him, and read his answer.

He experienced a rude awakening. A silent waiter stood beside him, offering for his inspection an elaborate menu. The letters danced before his eyes as Henry looked at them. What did they mean, anyhow, and how did one pick out what one wanted, he wondered. Or, perchance, was one expected gracefully to consume everything? His momentary self-sufficiency died on the instant, and sickening fears of making a mistake before Maria's eyes again overcame him. A great longing filled him to appear to advantage, to do the thing properly, whatever it was. On a sudden inspiration he leaned toward the waiter.

"Say," he said, confidentially, "you jest bring us two good dinners—the best of everything you've got—and I'll make it all right with yeh." He surveyed the waiter's face anxiously as he spoke, his own clearing as it remained quietly respectful.

"Very well, sir; certainly, sir," said the servant, promptly. "Oysters first, sir, I suppose, and a little green-turtle soup; a bit of fish, perhaps—we've some very nice sole in to-day, sir; a bird—the partridge and grouse are excellent, sir; a salad, and an ice. Any wine, sir? No, sir? Yes, sir." He was gone, and Mr. Smith wiped his perspiring brow. Maria was gazing at him with simple love and trust.

"I declare, Henry," she murmured, "you do it all just 's if you'd be'n doin' it every day of your life. Where'd you learn?"

Mr. Smith made a vague gesture repudiating the charge, but his face shone and he sat straighter in his chair. He dared not boast, for he knew there were crucial moments coming, but so far there had been no catastrophes and his courage grew with each achievement. When Maria looked doubtfully at her oysters, and, joyfully recognizing them, wondered audibly why they were not made into a stew instead of being presented in this semi-nude condition, he was able, after a piercing glance at near-by tables, to set her right with easy authority.

"They eat 'em this way in New York," he said, swallowing one himself and endeavoring, with indifferent success, to look as if he liked it. Maria followed his example, rather gingerly and not as one who ventures on a new joy. Her interest remained equally vague when the soup and fish successively appeared. When the partridge was served, however, with bread sauce and French pease and currant jelly, the gratifying experience of finally "having something really on the plate" moved her to alert appreciation, and she proceeded to eat her dinner with an expression of artless and whole-souled relief. She was able to point out to Henry, as a bit of prandial small-talk, that the orchestra was playing "Nancy Brown"—a classic ditty whose notes had reached even Clayton Centre. It was at this stimulating point of the dinner, also, that she felt privileged for the first time to remove her gloves, glance at the other tables and the clothes of the women, and talk freely to her husband. Hitherto she had "conversed" under pressure.

The waiter, offering her a second helping of jelly, saw, shining in her hair, several grains of rice. The discovery exhilarated but did not surprise him. His mien was one of fatherly interest five minutes later as he presented a small bottle for Mr. Smith's inspection.

"Champagne, sir," he murmured. "Not too dry for the lady's taste, sir.
Thought you'd like a glass—special occasion, sir—"

His eloquence died away under the startled look in the bride's eyes, but the groom met his happy suggestion with warm approval.

"Jest the thing," he said, heartily. "It'll do you good, Maria. Doctors give it when people ain't well, so you can take it 'thout any fear. 'N' I guess you're feelin' pretty well, ain't you?" he grinned, broadly, over this flash of humor.

He motioned to the waiter to fill her glass, and that worthy did so and retired behind her to give his courteous attention to the effect.

They drank their champagne, and a faint color came to Maria's pale cheeks. It was really a nice place, this hotel, she decided, and the furnishing of this room was such as palaces might cope with in vain. She had heard of their glories; now she could guess what those glories were. The voices of other guests chatting around her mingled with the music; Clayton Centre seemed very remote. At last she was seeing life.

She felt no embarrassment as they left the table. They strolled slowly down the dining-room and out into the palm-lined corridor on whose plush chairs handsome men and beautifully dressed women sat and chatted with surprising volubility and ease. Intrepidly the newcomers seated themselves side by side where they could listen to the music and watch the strange beings in this strange world. They were out of it all, and even in the exhilaration of the moment they knew it; but their aloofness from others added to the charm of the evening by drawing them closer together. They gloried in the joint occupation of their little island of happiness. For a long time they sat there, for Maria could not be torn away. The music, the costumes and beauty of the women, the delicate perfumes, the frequent ringing of bells, the hurrying back and forth of bell-boys and hotel servants, were indescribably fascinating to her.

The next morning Mr. Smith, sternly recalling himself to the material side of life, had a brief but pregnant chat with the clerk. He and his wife wished to stay a few days at the hotel, he intimated, but it would be advisable, before making their plans, to go somewhat into the question of expense. How much, for instance, was their dinner last night. He had signed a check, but his memory was hazy as to the amount. His brain reeled when the clerk, having looked it up, gave him the figures—$10.85.

"Good Lord!" gasped Mr. Henry Smith. "I guess we'd better go back to-day ef it's goin' to be THAT much!"

He was too limp mentally to follow for a time the clerks remarks, but light gradually broke upon him. He could henceforth take table d'hote meals, paying sixty cents each for breakfast and luncheon for himself and his wife, and one dollar each for their dinner. That would be only four dollars and forty cents a day for all meals—and would make the hotel bills much less than if one ordered by card, unless one was—er—familiar with the prices. It was much less trouble, too. Mr. Smith grasped the point and expansively shook the clerk's hand. His relief was so great that he urged that youth to have a cigar, and the youth in return volunteered information as to points of interest to strangers in New York.

"Better do the town to-day," he suggested. "Just go round and get a general view—Broadway, Fifth Avenue, the shops, and all that. Then to-night you'd better go to the play. I think you'd enjoy 'The White Cat' as much as anything."

Armed with definite information as to the most direct route to Broadway, Mr. Smith sought his bride. He found her in the corridor, watching the people come and go, her thin face flushed and animated.

"Oh, Henry," she cried, eagerly, "I declare I'm having the most interestin' time! Those folks over there—you know, the ones that has the room next to ours—ain't spoke to each other sence breakfast. Do you think they've quarrelled, the poor dears?"

He gave but perfunctory attention to "the poor dears," his duties as prospective cicerone filling his thoughts. Maria's face fell as he outlined their plans for the day.

"Well, if you feel to go, Henry," she said, doubtfully, "but it's SO interestin' here. I feel 's if I knew all these folks. I wish we could stay here this mornin', anyhow, 'n' not git out in those dreadful crowded streets jest yet."

He sat down beside her with a promptness which evoked a startled shriek from an absorbed young person reading near them.

"Then we'll stay right here," he announced, kindly. "We're here, 'Ria, to do jest what you want, an' we're goin' to do it."

She gave him an adoring look, and under its radiance Mr. Smith promptly forgot the small claims of Broadway. Siberia with Maria in it would have blossomed like the rose for Henry Smith, and the wide, cheerful corridors of the Berkeley were far removed from Siberia's atmosphere. Side by side and blissfully happy, they whiled the morning hours away. After luncheon Henry again tentatively touched on sight-seeing.

"'Tain't far," he said. He consulted the slip of directions the clerk had given him, and went on expansively, "We take the cross-town line at Fifty-ninth Street, transfer to a Broadway car—"

Maria shivered. "My, Henry," she quavered, "that sounds dreadful mixed.
I'm afraid we'll get lost."

Henry's own soul was full of dark forebodings, and he inwardly welcomed the respite her words gave him.

"Well, then, don't let's go," he said, easily, "till to-morrow, anyhow. We got plenty o' time. We'll stay here, an' to-night we'll go to see a play."

Like the morning, the afternoon passed sweetly. Henry made the discovery that the hotel cafe at the right of the reception-room was a popular resort for men guests of the hotel, and his researches into their pleasures led to an introduction to a Manhattan cocktail. He returned to Maria's side an ardent convert to her theory that the hotel was the pleasantest place in New York. Subsequently, as he sampled a Martini, one or two men chatted with him for a moment, giving him a delightful sense of easy association with his peers. Maria, in the mean time, had formed a pleasing acquaintance with the parlor maid, and had talked freely to several little children. It was with reluctance that they tore themselves away from the corridor long enough to go in to dinner.

The table d'hote dinner, served in another room, was much less elaborate than the banquet of the night before, but neither of them realized the difference. Good in itself, to them it was perfection, and Maria recognized almost as old friends familiar faces of fellow hotel guests at the tables around her. When the question of the theatre came up she was distinctly chilling.

"We'll go if you want to, Henry," she said, "but the band's goin' to play all evening, an' the maid said some of the young folks has got up a dance in the little ball-room. Wouldn't you like to see it?"

Henry decided that he would. He had, in fact, no rabid wish to see a play, and the prospect of piloting Maria safely to the centre of the town and home was definitely strenuous. He drank another cocktail after dinner, smoked a cigar with a Western travelling man, exchanged sage views on politics with that gentleman, and happily spent the remainder of the evening by his Maria's side, watching the whirling young things in the small ball-room. The happiest of them were sad, indeed, compared with Henry Smith.

The next morning the cheerful voice of the clerk greeted him as he came from the dining-room.

"Where to-day, Mr. Smith?" inquired that affable youth. "How about the Horse Show? You surely ought to look in on that." He wrote on a card explicit directions for arriving at the scene of this diversion, and Mr. Smith, gratefully accepting it, hastened to his bride's side. He found her full of another project.

"Oh, Henry," she cried, "they's going to be a lecture here in the hotel this mornin', by a lady that's been to Japan. All the money she gets for tickets will go to the poor. I guess she'll ask as much as twenty-five cents apiece, but I think we better go."

Sustained by a cocktail, and strengthened by the presence of his Maria, Mr. Smith attended the lecture, cheerfully paying two dollars for the privilege, but refraining from dampening his wife's joy by mentioning the fact. In the afternoon he broached the Horse Show. Maria's face paled. To her it meant an exaggerated county fair, with its attendant fatigue.

"You go, Henry," she urged. "You jest go an' enjoy yourself. I feel too tired—I really do. I'd rather stay home—here—an' rest. We don't really have to do nothing we don't want to, do we?"

Honest Henry Smith, whose working-day in Clayton Centre began at five in the morning and ended at six at night, and whose evenings were usually spent in the sleep of utter exhaustion, found himself relaxing deliciously under her words. It was good, very good, to rest, and to know they didn't HAVE to do things unless they wished.

"I won't, neither, go alone," he announced. "I ain't anxious to go. I'd ruther stay here with you. We'll go some other time."

The white-capped maid smiled as she passed them; the palms nodded as to old friends. The seductive charms of the Berkeley corridors again wrapped them round.

"Going to see some of the pictures to-day?" asked the clerk, on the third morning, cheerfully doing his duty by the strangers as he conceived it. "Better go to Central Park first and the Metropolitan Museum, then to the private exhibitions. Here's the list. Take a cross-town car to Fifth Avenue, and a 'bus to Eighty-first Street, and after the Park a Fifth Avenue 'bus will drop you at the other places."

Apprehension settled over Henry Smith, rudely disturbing his lotos-eater's sense of being. He felt almost annoyed by this well-meaning but indefatigable young man who seemed to think folks should be gadding all the time. His manner was unresponsive as he took the addresses.

"I'll see what my wife says," he remarked, indifferently.

His wife said what he believed and hoped she would say.

"We ain't goin' home till to-morrow afternoon," she observed, "an' we can see Central Park to-morrow mornin' if we want to. They's a woman here that does up hair for fifty cents, an' I thought if yeh didn't mind, Henry, I'd have her do mine—"

Henry urged her to carry out this happy inspiration. "She can't make yeh look any nicer, though," he added, gallantly. Then, as Maria surrendered herself and their room to the hairdresser's ministrations, he visited the bar, chatted with his friend the clerk, and smoked a good cigar. Afterward he selected a comfortable chair in the corridor where he was to meet Maria, stretched his long legs, dozed, and found it good to be alive.

A befrizzled Maria, whose scant hair stood out in startling Marcel waves, confronted him at luncheon-time. A sudden inspiration shook him to his depths.

"Don't you want to go down-town and have your picture took?" he urged.
"Let's have ours done together."

Maria was proof against even this lure. She had a better idea.

"They's a photograph man right here in the hotel," she chirped, joyously. "He's next to the flower-shop, an' we can go right in through that little narrow hall."

They went, subsequently carrying home with them as their choicest treasure the cabinet photograph for which they had posed side by side, with the excitement of New York life shining in their honest eyes. In the evening the clerk suggested a concert.

"It's a fine one, at Carnegie Hall, right near here," he urged, cheerfully, "and Sembrich is to sing, with the Symphony Orchestra. You can get in for fifty cents if you don't mind sitting in the gallery. You really ought to go, Mrs. Smith; you would enjoy it."

Mrs. Smith turned upon him an anxious eye.

"How far did you say 'twas?" she asked, warily.

"Oh, not ten minutes' ride. You take the car here at the corner—"

But the mention of the car blighted the budding purpose in Maria's soul.

"I feel real tired," she said, quickly, "but if my husband wants to go—"

Her husband loudly disavowed any such aspiration.

"We got a long journey before us to-morrow," he said, "an' I guess we better rest."

They rested in the Berkeley corridor, amid the familiar sights and scenes. The following morning found them equally disinclined for sight-seeing. Seated in their favorite chairs, they watched the throngs of happy people who came and went around them. Henry had added to the list of his acquaintances two more travelling men and the boy at the news-counter. His wife had heard in detail the sad story of her chambermaid's life, and a few facts and surmises about fellow-guests at the hotel.

Maria drew a long sigh when, after they had paid their bill the next day and bade farewell to the clerk and other new friends, they climbed into the cab which was to take them to the station.

"My, but it was interestin'!" she said, softly; adding, with entire conviction, "Henry, I 'ain't never had such a good time in my hull life! I really 'ain't!"

"Neither have I," avowed Henry, truthfully. "Wasn't it jest bully!"

On the train a sudden thought occurred to Mrs. Smith.

"Henry," she began, uneasily, "s'pose any one asks what we've SEEN in New York. What'll we tell 'em? You know, somehow we didn't seem t' git time t' see much."

Henry Smith was equal to the emergency.

"We'll say we seen so much we can't remember it," he said, shamelessly. "Don't you worry one bit about that, Maria Smith. I've always heard that weddin' couples don't never really see nothin' on their weddin' towers, anyhow—they gad an' gad, an' it don't do no good. We was wiser not to try!"