“Half froze, he is, waitin’ outside Sherry’s or Delmonico’s, and nobody thinkin’ of what he suffers.  Go, git him, John, dear, and I’ll stir up the fire.  They ought to be ashamed of themselves, dancin’ till God knows when—­and here it is two o’clock and a string of cabs out in the cold.  Thank ye, John.  In with ye, my lad, and get something to warm ye up,” and then the rosy-cheeked, deep-breasted, cheery little woman—­ she was under forty—­her eyes the brighter for her thought, would begin pulling down cups and saucers from her dresser, making ready not only for the “lad,” but for John and herself—­and anybody else who happened to be within call.

The hospitalities of her family sitting-room, opening out of the kitchen, were reserved for her intimates.  These she welcomed at any hour of the day or night, from sunrise to sunset, and even as late as two in the morning, if either business or pleasure necessitated such hours.

Tim Kelsey, the hunchback, often dropped in.  Otto Kling, after Masie was abed; Digwell, the undertaker, quite a jolly fellow during off hours; Codman and Porterfield, with their respective wives; and, most welcome of all, Father Cruse, of St. Barnabas’s Church around the corner, the trusted shepherd of “The Avenue”—­a clear-skinned, well-built man, barely forty, whose muscular body just filled his black cassock so that it neither fell in folds nor wrinkled crosswise, and whose fresh, ruddy face was an index of the humane, kindly, helpful life that he led.  For him Kitty could never do enough.

The office, sitting-room, and kitchen, however, were not all that the expressman and his wife possessed in the way of accommodations.  Up-stairs were two front bedrooms, one occupied by John and Kitty, and the other by their boy Bobby, while in the extreme rear, over the kitchen, was a single room which was let to any respectable man who could pay for it.  These rooms were all reached by a staircase ascending from a narrow hall entered by a separate street-door adjoining that of the office.  The door and staircase were convenient for the lodger wishing to stumble up to bed without disturbing his hosts—­an event, however, that seldom happened, as Kitty was generally the last person awake in her house.

The horses, as has been said, were kept in the livery-stable next door—­the brown mare, a recent purchase, and the old white horse, Jim, the pride of Kitty’s heart, in a special stall.  The wagons were either backed in the shed in the rear or left overnight close to the curb, with chains on the hind wheels.  This was contrary to regulations, and would have been so considered but for the fact that the captain of the precinct often got his coffee in Kitty’s back kitchen, as did Tom McGinniss, the big policeman, whose beat reached nearly to the tunnel, both men soothing their consciences with the argument that Kitty’s job lasted so late and began so early, sometimes a couple of hours or so before daylight, that it was not worth while to bother about her wagons, when everybody else was in bed, or ought to be.