It amused Dick to see how attentive Darling was to Florrie; helping her into the car and pointing out the sights of the lower city. Dick had never paid much attention to young ladies. The car carried them up past Union Square, and a few blocks beyond that Dick saw a sign at the door of a large apartment house--“Apartment to Let. Inquire of the Janitor.” He knew it to be a very elegant and expensive place, for business had taken him there a few days before. But it occurred to him that it would be a good chance to let his mother and Florrie see one of the finest apartment houses in the city, and at the same time he would surprise them a little with the price, which was sure to be high. He signaled the conductor to stop and gave Darling a sly look, which was understood. “We would like to look at the apartment you have to let,” Dick said to the attendant at the door; and in a moment they were all in an elevator resplendent with gilt and mirrors, rapidly traveling skyward. “It is a small apartment,” the attendant said when they reached the place; “only a drawing-room, two bed chambers, and bath. But there is a beautiful view; this is the eleventh floor.” <tb> Mrs. Sumner shrank back from the window with an exclamation of alarm. “Oh, I never could live up here, Dick!” she said. “It makes me giddy just to look out. They’re such stuffy little rooms, too, though very handsome. I suppose they’d want a pretty good rent, small as it is. What is the rent, young man?” “Thirty-five hundred a year, ma’am,” the attendant answered. “We will have a larger apartment vacant in about two months; that will be five thousand.” Darling was afraid that the ladies would express the surprise he saw in their faces, so he hastily said:-- “We could hardly wait two months, and these rooms are too small; so we may as well look elsewhere. Shall we go down?” “It was a shame not to tell you before we went in, mother,” Dick said when they were in the street again; “but I wanted to give you a little surprise. Those three small rooms are three thousand five hundred dollars a year, and we’ve got to have at least six rooms for thirty dollars a month. So you see what a task we have before us.” It was a task indeed, but it was successfully accomplished. After visiting places little better than tenement houses, and other places far beyond their means, they found an apartment in Forty-ninth Street, near Lexington Avenue, that was satisfactory in both size and price. “No, you’re not going to fool me again, Dick,” Mrs. Sumner said when she first saw the marble columns in front, the carved doors, and the mosaic pavement. “I’m not going into any more of your three thousand five hundred dollar places.” “No danger of that here, Mrs. Sumner,” Darling said with a smile. “The show is all on the outside here to catch the eye. We shall find it plain enough within.”