The house they chose was a romantic one, and it was on Rutger Street, a fine, old established street not far from Bleecker Street and Mount Carmel parish. Even though the house was not at the most fashionable end toward Rutger Park, but more easterly where lots and yards were smaller and there were no rear carriage-houses, still it was a definite social advancement from the old neighborhood.

The street was arched over with towering old elms, and the house at number 675 had a large backyard that the girls knew was a necessity for their mother’s garden; it also had a spacious and dignified front porch of the confident, ebullient era when families sat out and spoke to their neighbors, and a handsome approach up wide stairs between red sandstone balustrades that terminated in pillars topped by graceful white columns, continued at intervals along the porch. It was a Queen Anne structure, with the scalloped shingles, festoons, and garlands typical of that revival style. The house rounded and curved with bays and turrets, and had gables, chimneys, and useless balconies along parts of the second floor. Umbertina laughed when she saw it, and laughed again when Carla explained that it was the most romantic house she had ever seen; she and Sara wanted it because it had a huge golden-oak staircase with banisters and a landing that curved in a bay beneath a stained-glass window that would be perfect for the descent on their wedding days.

Her two youngest daughters made Umbertina uneasy. They sometimes took her to American movies where love and marriage was shown as a game played between men and women instead of the serious matter it was. “Oche,” she chided them. “You have to respect marriage, not be geese about it.”