The house stood on Wall Street, and to the fact that it like a few
others has been built of brick, it owed its escape from the fire which
ravaged, the city in 1776, the fire which also destroyed old Trinity
Church, leaving the unsightly ruin standing for some years in what was
aristocratic New York of the period. It was a square,
comfortable-looking mansion, with the Dutch _stoep_ in front, and the
half-arch of small-paned glass above the front door, which was painted
white and bore a massive brass knocker. That same knocker was a source
of much irritation to Peter Provoost; for although he was of fair size
for his thirteen years, he could barely reach it when mounted on the
very tips of his toes, and even then never dared touch its shining
surface unless his fingers were clean--a desirable state of neatness
which, alas! did not often adorn the luckless Peter. For though tidy and
careful enough when appearing before his guardians, Mr. and Mrs.
Verplanck, it must be confessed that going to and from school Peter was
prone to lay down both books and hat, oftentimes in the mud, and square
himself pugnaciously if he chanced to meet one of the boys of the "Vly
Market," who were wont to scoff and tease the Broadway boys
unmercifully; and fierce battles were the frequent outcome of the
feeling between the two sections, and in those Peter invariably took
part.

The family was a small one, and consisted of Gulian Verplanck and his
wife, his grandmother, Mrs. Effingham, a lovely old Quakeress, and
Peter, who, having lost both parents at an early age, had remained in
Albany with his other guardian, Mr. Abram Lansing, until some six months
before, when it was decided that he should go to New York and be under
the Verplanck eye; and although Peter had rebelled much against the plan
in the first place, he found himself much happier under Clarissa's