“Who are they?” asked Hurstwood.

“I don’t know,” said Carrie.  “The name on the bell is Vance.  Some one over there plays beautifully.  I guess it must be she.”

“Well, you never can tell what sort of people you’re living next to in this town, can you?” said Hurstwood, expressing the customary New York opinion about neighbors.

“Just think,” said Carrie, “I have been in this house with nine other families for over a year and I don’t know a soul.  These people have been here over a month and I haven’t seen any one before this morning.”

“It’s just as well,” said Hurstwood.  ’You never know who you’re going to get in with.  Some of these people are pretty bad company.”

“I expect so,” said Carrie, agreeably.

The conversation turned to other things, and Carrie thought no more upon the subject until a day or two later, when, going out to market, she encountered Mrs. Vance coming in.  The latter recognized her and nodded, for which Carrie returned a smile.  This settled the probability of acquaintanceship.  If there had been no faint recognition on this occasion, there would have been no future association.

Carrie saw no more of Mrs. Vance for several weeks, but she heard her play through the thin walls which divided the front rooms of the flats, and was pleased by the merry selection of pieces and the brilliance of their rendition.  She could play only moderately herself, and such variety as Mrs. Vance exercised bordered, for Carrie, upon the verge of great art.  Everything she had seen and heard thus far—­the merest scraps and shadows-indicated that these people were, in a measure, refined and in comfortable circumstances.  So Carrie was ready for any extension of the friendship which might follow.

One day Carrie’s bell rang and the servant, who was in the kitchen, pressed the button which caused the front door of the general entrance on the ground floor to be electrically unlatched.  When Carrie waited at her own door on the third floor to see who it might be coming up to call on her, Mrs. Vance appeared.

“I hope you’ll excuse me,” she said.  “I went out a while ago and forgot my outside key, so I thought I’d ring your bell.”

This was a common trick of other residents of the building, whenever they had forgotten their outside keys.  They did not apologize for it, however.

“Certainly,” said Carrie.  “I’m glad you did.  I do the same thing sometimes.”

“Isn’t it just delightful weather?” said Mrs. Vance, pausing for a moment.

Thus, after a few more preliminaries, this visiting acquaintance was well launched, and in the young Mrs. Vance Carrie found an agreeable companion.

On several occasions Carrie visited her and was visited.  Both flats were good to look upon, though that of the Vances tended somewhat more to the luxurious.

“I want you to come over this evening and meet my husband,” said Mrs. Vance, not long after their intimacy began.  “He wants to meet you.  You play cards, don’t you?”