In the new year the real business of changing began. It was hard to select a house. Joe said all New York was going up-town, and that before many years the lower part of the city would be given over to business. Bond and Amity Street, around St. John's Park and East Broadway were still centres of fashion. The society people had come up from the Bowling Green and the Battery, though there were still some beautiful old houses that business people clung to because they wanted to be near to everything. Harlem and Yorkville were considered country. Up on the east side as far as Eightieth or Ninetieth Street there were some spacious summer residences with beautiful grounds. A few fine mansions clustered about University Square. City Hall Park was still covered with fine growing shade-trees. There was such a magnificent fountain that Lydia Maria Child, describing it, said there was nothing to equal it in the Old World. Still, the unmistakable trend was up-town. Grace Church was agitating a new building at Tenth Street. Rows of houses were being put up on the new streets, though down-town people rather scoffed and wondered why people were not going up to Harlem and taking their business places along. After much discussion the Underhills settled upon First Street. Stephen made the decision, though he had great faith in "up-town." This was convenient. Then they could buy through to Houston Street, and there was a stable and sort of storehouse on the end of the lot. And though you wouldn't think it now, it was quite pretty and refined then, from Avenue A out to the Bowery. They were in a row of nice brick houses, quite near First Avenue, on the lower side of the street. Opposite it was well built for quite a space, and then came the crowning glory of the block. About a dozen houses stood thirty or so feet back from the street and had lovely flower-gardens in front. Stephen would have liked one of these, but the houses were not roomy enough. And in their own place they had a nice grass-plot, some flower-beds, and several fruit-trees, beside a grape-trellis. He thought his mother would be less homesick if she could see some bloom and greenery. It was the last of March, 1843, that the little girl came to New York. Mrs. Underhill believed it only an experiment. When the boys were grown up and married, settled in their own homes, she and 'Milyer would go back to Yonkers on their part of the farm and have a nice big house for their old age and for the grandchildren. In her motherly heart she hoped there would be a good many of them. She couldn't have spared any of her eight children.