Stuart wrote the labels and pasted them on the tops, and they stood ready for the expressman. Then the three put on their outer garments and turned to leave their flat. Palma paused and looked back half regretfully. “Good-by, pretty little home,” she said. “We have been very happy in you, but you must not mind our going away. We shall have to go away from our bodies some of these days! But I hope you will have very pleasant tenants always. Good-by.” Stuart did not laugh at her, but Mrs. Pole did, and said as they went to the elevator: “If I didn’t know you as well as I do, child, I should really sometimes think you were crazy!” “Oh, Poley! don’t you know there is a soul in places and in things, as well as there is in all other living creatures?” she answered. Mrs. Pole did not reply, but thought within herself: “I do suppose as there be some of the sensiblest people crazy in spots.” They went down in the elevator; and what a misfit of words there is in that sentence! They found the janitor waiting in the office to see them off. Mr. Stuart gave him the key of the vacated apartments, and they all shook hands with him and left, with the request that he would see to the delivery of their trunks to the expressman. Then they walked down the street to the corner of the avenue where the cars passed. Mr. Stuart hailed the first down one, and they boarded it. They rode about the length of twenty blocks, got off and walked across town to Broadway, and entered the office of the hotel that Stuart had chosen for their sojourning place that night. They were easily provided with rooms. When Palma had taken off her bonnet in her chamber Mrs. Pole, who still stood up in her street costume, said: “Now, ma’am, if you please, I must leave you for a little while.” “What, Poley dear! Is there any more shopping to do? Have you forgotten anything?” demanded Palma. “No, my child! But as we are to start to-morrow morning I must go and take leave of my kinfolks to-night.” “Oh, Poley! And they live away downtown somewhere! And—you can never go alone!” “Why not, child? I have been used to go alone all about the city all the days of my life, even when I was a young woman, and nothing ever happened to me, or even threatened to happen to me! And if nothing didn’t in my youth, nothing ain’t like to do it in my age! Don’t be uneasy, child! I’ll be back by ten o’clock, and one o’ my nephies will see me here safe.” “But won’t you wait until after dinner? Cleve says they keep a sumptuous table here.” “Then I hope you will get the good of it, my dear, but as for me, I must hurry away. I’ll make up for missing of my dinner by eating a hearty supper when I come back.” “Take care, you must not risk a return of those horrid nights you had at Lull’s, you know,” said Palma, with a sudden recollection of the sleep-walking and magpie-hiding propensities that had been features of those disturbed nights, though features that happily Mrs. Pole had never suspected.