Marcia listened in dismay. At the end she drew a long breath. “Well, we must go away from here as soon as possible,--that I know. We'll go out and find some boarding-place. That's the first thing.” “Oh, now, Marcia, you're not going to be so severe as that, are you?” pleaded Bartley. “A few dollars, more or less, are not going to keep us out of the poorhouse. I just want to stay here three days: that will leave us a clean hundred, and we can start fair.” He was half joking, but she was wholly serious. “No, Bartley! Not another hour,--not another minute! Come!” She took his arm and bent it up into a crook, where she put her hand, and pulled him toward the door. “Well, after all,” he said, “it will be some fun looking up a room.” There was no one else in the parlor; in going to the door they took some waltzing steps together. While she dressed to go out, he looked up places where rooms were let with or without board, in the newspaper. “There don't seem to be a great many,” he said meditatively, bending over the open sheet. But he cut out half a dozen advertisements with his editorial scissors, and they started upon their search. They climbed those pleasant old up-hill streets that converge to the State House, and looked into the houses on the quiet Places that stretch from one thoroughfare to another. They had decided that they would be content with two small rooms, one for a chamber, and the other for a parlor, where they could have a fire. They found exactly what they wanted in the first house where they applied, one flight up, with sunny windows, looking down the street; but it made Marcia's blood run cold when the landlady said that the price was thirty dollars a week. At another place the rooms were only twenty; the position was as good, and the carpet and furniture prettier. This was still too dear, but it seemed comparatively reasonable till it appeared that this was the price without board. “I think we should prefer rooms with board, shouldn't we?” asked Bartley, with a sly look at Marcia. The prices were of all degrees of exorbitance, and they varied for no reason from house to house; one landlady had been accustomed to take more and another less, but never little enough for Marcia, who overruled Bartley again and again when he wished to close with some small abatement of terms. She declared now that they must put up with one room, 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.”