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"The Ten Eyck!" exclaimed Margaret, in a tone of hushed awe. "Gracious! she must be very wealthy, then!"

"Wait till you hear!" murmured Jess, parenthetically, and Bess went on:

"She told us they'd just moved there because her father, who isn't in very good health, has to live near his business. He's in a big steamship company on West Street. And until now they've always lived in an apartment on Madison Avenue near Central Park. They just moved down here a week ago. Her mother is dead, and an aunt, her father's sister, lives with them.

"By this time we had reached the Ten Eyck, and what do you think!—she asked us to come in and chat awhile, because she was all alone. Her aunt was out at some club. Of course we went in, and my! but it was splendiferous, especially going up to the eighth floor in a big elevator! Their rooms are sort of built all around a central hall. It's different from any apartment we were ever in. Corinne took us to her room, which was about as large as this11 parlor, and had the cutest low bookcases all around the walls and lovely cushioned seats in the windows. And we sat there and talked a long time.

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"But here's another queer thing about her. While we were talking about school and our studies, and how hard the geometry seemed, she suddenly showed us an old book that was lying on her table,—it was a very old, battered-up looking book with brown stains on the leaves, and one cover half hanging off, and the queerest old-fashioned pictures,—and, she asked us whether we'd like to look at it. She said it was her chief treasure just now. It was called 'Valentine's Manual, Volume II,' and seemed to be all about New York City in very early times. She said her father had picked it up at an auction-sale of some one's library, and had given it to her for her birthday.

"I didn't say much, for somehow I thought it was an awfully queer thing to get for your birthday—an old, dilapidated, uninteresting book like that! And then I guess she saw that we were surprised, for she said:

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"'Don't you love old things?'

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