Generally there appeared the trim short skirt I had noticed as so appropriate on shipboard; here and there a sort of Florentine gown, long, richly damasked; sometimes a Greekish flow of drapery; the men mostly knickerbockered. I couldn't deny that it was pleasant to the eye, but it worried me a little none the less. "There's no hurry, John," said Nellie, always unobtrusively watching me. "Some things you'll just have to get used to." "Before I wholly accept this sudden new brother," I presently suggested, "I'd like to know his name." "Montrose--Owen Montrose, at your service," he said, bowing his fine head. "Also Jerrold Montrose--and Hallie Robertson!" "Dear, dear!" I protested. "So it's come to that, has it?" "It's come to that--and we still love each other!" Nellie cheerfully agreed. "But it isn't final. There's a strong movement on foot to drop hereditary names altogether." I groaned. "In the name of common humanity, don't tell me anything worse than you have now!" Hallie's apartment was in a big building, far uptown, overlooking the Hudson. "I have to live in town nine months of the year, you see. Uncle, on account of my work," she explained rather apologetically. "Hallie's an official--and awfully proud of it," her brother whispered very loudly. "Jerrold's only a musician--and pretends to be proud of it!" she retorted. Whereat he forcibly held and kissed her. I could see no very strong difference between this brother and sister and others I had known--except that they were perhaps unusually affectionate. It was a big, handsome place. The front windows faced the great river, the rear ones opened on a most unexpected scene of loveliness. A big sheltered garden, every wall-space surrounding it a joy to the eye--rich masses of climbing vines, a few trees, a quiet fountain, beautiful stone seats and winding walks, flowers in profusion, and birds singing. "We used to have only the song of the tomcat in my time. Have you taught the cat to lie down with the canary--or killed him?" "There are no animals kept in cities any more--except the birds--and they come and go." "Mostly sparrows, I suppose?" "No; the sparrow went with the horse," Owen replied. "And the mouse, the fly and the croton bug went with the kitchen." I turned with a gesture of despair. "No homes left?----" "I didn't say 'home'--I said 'kitchen.' Brace up, old man! We still eat--and better food than you ever dreamed of in your hungriest youth." "That's a long story," Nellie here suggested. "We mustn't crowd him. Let's get washed and rested a bit, and have some of that food you're boasting of." They gave me a room with a river window, and I looked out at the broad current, changed only in its lovely clearness, and at the changeless Palisades. Changeless? I started, and seized the traveling glass still on the strap.