The cab rolled up Broadway, that main thoroughfare of New York stretching along for miles, with two apparently unbroken chains of street-cars moving by each other.  At that time the cars were propelled by an endless cable travelling in a conduit under the roadway.  The traffic all along Broadway was enormous, and the contrast was the more surprising when the cab, after traversing another lively street, turned into a deserted-looking side street, where almost country-like quiet prevailed.

The cab came to a halt, and Willy Snyders helped Ingigerd out.  The travellers found themselves in front of a low one-family house with a flight of outside steps, differing in no wise from the other houses on the block, which were all built on the same plan, of exactly the same height, of exactly the same width, and with absolute similarity of detail.  Frederick had observed such architectural monotony only in workingmen’s houses in Germany, while here it was the mark of a fairly aristocratic section.

Twilight had already fallen when Frederick and Ingigerd at length found privacy in their rooms.  The rooms, plainly furnished and scrupulously clean, were lighted by electricity and heated from a furnace in the cellar; and the floors were not laid with wood, but paved with red bricks.  Petronilla, the old Italian housekeeper, took Ingigerd in charge, looking after the smallest of her wants with touching motherliness.  The two said what was necessary to say in a mixture of Italian and English.  After showing Ingigerd to her room and seeing that she was provided with everything, Petronilla stepped out into the hall to call a maid, who was working in another part of the house.  Frederick heard her, and put his head out of the door to inquire after Ingigerd.

“The signorina dropped on the couch without undressing and fell right asleep,” she said.

Frederick feeling somewhat uneasy went with Petronilla to look after Ingigerd, and found that she had merely succumbed to a leaden sleep.  Her constitution, after weeks of over-exertion and abuse, was asserting its rights.  Petronilla and the maid undressed her and put her to bed, all unconscious, though now and then opening wide her shimmering sea-green eyes.

II

Frederick washed and went down-stairs to the basement with Willy Snyders.  Here there was a tidy little dining-room with a table set for eight.  As in the other rooms, the floors were of brick, and the walls half-way up were hung with burlap.  Where the burlap ended, a narrow shelf ran around the entire room, set with all sorts of household utensils, chiefly fiaschi of wine in straw cases.  Like everything else about the place, the napery was exquisitely clean.