was no hard and fast law about making up beds at any special hour,
though a remnant of superstition still existed that it was a good
thing to make up a bed before you slept in it. There were more women
on their respective front steps, and fewer in their respective
kitchens, in Eden Place than in almost any other locality in the
city. That they lived for the most part in close and friendly
relations could be seen from the condition of the fences between the
front yards, whose upper rails fairly sagged with the weight of
gossip.

One woman, living in the middle of the row, evidently possessed
somewhat different views, for she had planted vines on each of her
division fences, rented her parlour to a lodger who only slept there,
kept all her front curtains drawn, and stayed in the hack of her
house. Such retribution as could legally be wreaked upon this
offensive and exclusive person was daily administered by her two
neighbours, who stood in their doors on either side and conversed
across her house and garden with much freedom and exuberance. They
had begged the landlord to induce her to take up her abode elsewhere;
but as she was the only tenant who paid her rent regularly, he
refused to part with her.

Any one passing the 'No Smoking' sign and entering the front door of
Mrs. Grubb's house, on the corner, would have turned off the narrow
uncarpeted hall into the principal room, and, if he were an observing
person, would have been somewhat puzzled by its appearance. There
were seven or eight long benches on one side, yet it had not the
slightest resemblance to a schoolroom. The walls were adorned with a
variety of interesting objects. There was a chart showing a mammoth
human hand, the palm marked with myriads of purple lines. There were