Catherine smoothed the cretonne scarf on the dressing table, adjusted the bright curtains, moved the little wicker chair to make room for Letty's bed, and with a grimace at the glimpse of the court even through the curtains, went on to the living room. Letty was asleep in Catherine's room. Spencer and Marian had scorned her hint that a nap might be good for them, and were sitting disconsolately in chairs drawn near the windows. Here, at least, was something beside too intimate suggestion of neighboring lives, even if the rain held it to-day in somber dullness. Beneath the windows the tops of trees pricked through the mist, as if one looked down into a forest; they were only the poplars and Balm of Gilead that grew on the steep slope of Morningside, but as Spencer had said, they were _trees_. And beyond them, extending far off into the dim gray horizon, the city--flat roofs, with strange shapes of chimneys, water tanks, or elevator sheds, merged to-day into dark solidity. On clear days, there was a hint of water in the distance, and the balanced curve of a great bridge. After all, thought Catherine, there was air in the bedrooms--you couldn't expect birch trees and stars in the city--and they did have distance and sometimes the enchantment of the varying city from these windows. But it was queer--she smiled as Spencer eyed her over his book--queer that beauty, sunlight, air, should be things for which you paid money; that you had to think yourself fortunate if you could afford one window which did not open upon sordidness. "Moth-er, do you think I'd get too wet if I just went outdoors for five minutes?" Spencer was dolorous. "My throat is all stuffed up, and I'll lose my muscle, just sitting still." "No fun going out here," grumped Marian. "In a little while I am going out shopping for dinner. Would you like to go?" VIII In raincoats and rubbers, each with a bobbing umbrella, Catherine sighing at the lost summer comfort of knickerbockers and boots, the three went out into the rain. The children sparkled as if they had escaped from jail. Spencer peered from under his umbrella at the heavy sky. "Mebbe when the tide turns the wind'll change," he said. "Huh!" Marian giggled. "In the city? That's only in the country." "I guess there is wind in town, too, and tides, aren't there, Moth-er?" "Wind, all right!" The gust at the corner of Amsterdam Avenue caught their umbrellas like chips. They ducked into the wet wind, rounded the corner, and bent against it down the avenue. "Isn't there any tide?" insisted Spencer.