One day in the middle of the month, Desire Ledwith, Hazel Ripwinkley, and Sylvie had business with Luclarion in Neighbor Street. There was work to carry; a little basket of things for the fine laundry; some bakery orders to give. There was always Luclarion herself to see. Just now, besides and especially, they were all interested in Ray Ingraham's rooms that were preparing in the next house to the Neighbors; a house which Mr. Geoffrey and others had bought, enlarged, and built up; fitting it in comfortable suites for housekeeping, at rents of from twenty-five to thirty dollars a month, each. They were as complete and substantial in all their appointments as apartments as the Commonwealth or the Berkeley; there was only no magnificence, and there was no "locality" to pay for. The locality was to be ministered to and redeemed, by the very presence of this growth of pure and pleasant and honorable living in its midst. For the most part, those who took up an abiding here had enough of the generous human sense in them to account it a satisfaction so to contribute themselves; for the rest, there was a sprinkling of decent people, who were glad to get good homes cheap in the heart of a dear city; and the public, Christian intent of the movement sheltered and countenanced them with its chivalrous respectability. Frank Sunderline and Ray were to live here for a year; they were to be married the first of March. Frank had said that Ray would have to manage him and the Bakery too, and Ray was prepared to fulfill both obligations. She was going to carry out here, with Luclarion Grapp, her idea of public supply for the chief staple of food. They were going to try a manufacture of breadstuffs and cakestuffs, on real home principles, by real domestic receipts. They were going to have sale shops in different quarters,--at the South and West ends. Already their laundry sustained itself by doing excellent work at moderate prices; why should they not, in still another way meet and play into the movement of the time for simplifying it, and making household routine more independent? "Why shouldn't there be," Ray said, with appetizing emphasis, "a place to buy _cup_ cake, and _composition_ cake, and _sponge_ cake, tender and rich, made with eggs instead of ammonia? Why shouldn't there be pies with sweet butter-crust crisp and good like mother's, and nice wholesome little puddings? Everybody knew that since the war, when the confectioners began to economize in their materials and double their prices at the same time, there was nothing fit to buy and call cake in the city. Why shouldn't somebody begin again, honest? And here, where they didn't count upon outrageous profits, why couldn't it be as well as not? When there was a good thing to be had in one place, other places would have to keep up. It would make a difference everywhere, sooner or later."