Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images available at The Internet Archive) [Illustration: See page 7 "WHAT THEY CALL THE FRONT HALL-BEDROOM"] [Illustration: Vistas of New York] BY BRANDER MATTHEWS AUTHOR OF "VIGNETTES OF MANHATTAN" "OUTLINES IN LOCAL COLOR," ETC. ILLUSTRATED [Illustration] NEW YORK AND LONDON HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 1912 COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY HARPER & BROTHERS PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA PUBLISHED MARCH, 1912 CONTENTS PAGE I. A YOUNG MAN FROM THE COUNTRY 1 II. ON THE STEPS OF THE CITY HALL 35 III. "SISTERS UNDER THEIR SKINS" 55 IV. UNDER AN APRIL SKY 71 V. AN IDYL OF CENTRAL PARK 99 VI. IN A HANSOM 123 VII. THE FROG THAT PLAYED THE TROMBONE 139 VIII. ON AN ERRAND OF MERCY 159 IX. IN A BOB-TAIL CAR 177 X. IN THE SMALL HOURS 189 XI. HER LETTER TO HIS SECOND WIFE 205 XII. THE SHORTEST DAY IN THE YEAR 229 ILLUSTRATIONS "WHAT THEY CALL THE FRONT HALL-BEDROOM" _Frontispiece_ "I'M SURE HE'D RATHER TALK TO YOU, MY DEAR; SO YOU TWO CAN RUN ALONG TOGETHER" _Facing p._ 104 THIS YEAR THE GIRLS WERE PRETTIER THAN USUAL " 128 "I WENT TO SEE THE WOMAN MY FRIEND LOVED" " 148 "MY! AIN'T IT AWFUL? IT BLEW HIS LEGS OFF!" " 170 SHE FLUNG HERSELF INTO HIS ARMS " 226 NOTE In one of those romances in which Hawthorne caught the color and interpreted the atmosphere of his native New England, he declared that "destiny, it may be, the most skillful of stage managers, seldom chooses to arrange its scenes and carry forward its drama without securing the presence of at least one calm observer." It is the character of this calm observer that the writer has imagined himself to be assuming in the dozen little sketches and stories garnered here into a volume. They are snapshots or flashlights of one or another of the shifting aspects of this huge and sprawling metropolis of ours.