They cannot say, however, even my most protesting friends, that I am not living in a perfectly proper neighborhood.  The front of my house faces, beyond the discouraged little park, a strata of streets which unfold from lessening degrees of dreariness and dinginess to ever-increasing expensiveness and unashamed architectural extravaganzas, to the summit of residential striving, called, for impressiveness, the Avenue, but behind it is a section of the city of which I am as ignorant as if it were in the depths of the sea or the wilds of primeval forest.  I have traveled much, but I do not know the city wherein I live.  I know but a part of it, the pretty part.

There was something Mrs. Mundy wanted to say to me to-night, and did not say.  I love the dear soul.  I could not live here without her, could not learn what I am learning without her help and sympathy and loyalty, but at times I wish she were a bit less fond of chatting.  She is greatly puzzled.  She, too, cannot understand why I have come to Scarborough Square to live, and I am quite certain she thinks it strange I do not tell her.  How can I tell that of which I am not sure myself—­that is, clearly and definitely sure?

I am not trying to be sure.  It is enough that I am here, free to come and go as I choose, to plan my day as I wish, to have time for the things I once had no time for, and why must there always be explanations and reasons and justifications for one’s acts?  The daily realization each morning, on awaking, that the day is mine, that there are no customs with which to comply, no regulations to follow, no conventions to be conformed to, at the end of two weeks still stirs and thrills and awes me a little, and I am constantly afraid it is not true that I am here to stay.  And then again with something of fear and shrinking and uncertainty I realize my bridges are burned and I must stay.

“It’s pleased you are with your rooms, I hope, Miss Dandridge?” Hands on her hips, Mrs. Mundy had looked somewhat anxiously at me before going out.  “If it’s a home-looking place you’re after, you’ve got it, but when you first come down to Scarborough Square it made me feel queer inside to think of your living here, really living.  If you think you can be satisfied—­”

“I am sure I can be satisfied.  Why not?” I smiled and, going over to the window, straightened the curtain which had caught and twisted a fern-leaf growing in its box.  “I am a perfectly unincumbered human being who—­”

“But an unincumbered woman ain’t much of a human being.”  Mrs. Mundy dropped the afternoon paper she had brought up and stooped to get it.  “I mean a woman is made for incumbrances, and if she don’t have any—­” She hesitated, and looked around the room with its simple furnishings, its firelight and lamplight, its many books and few pictures, its rugs and desk and tables, the gifts of other days, and presently she spoke again.  “Being you like so to look out the windows, it’s well this house has two front rooms opening into each other.  If it’s comfortable and convenient that you want to be, you’re certainly that, but comforts and conveniences don’t keep you company exactly.”