in the kalsomining of the parlor ceiling, and gratuitously said, Now such a thing as that he should not agree to put in shape unless they took the apartment for a term of years.  The apartment was unfurnished, and they recurred to the fact that they wanted a furnished apartment, and made their escape.  This saved them in several other extremities; but short of extremity they could not keep their different requirements in mind, and were always about to decide without regard to some one of them.

They went to several places twice without intending:  once to that old-fashioned house with the pleasant colored janitor, and wandered all over the apartment again with a haunting sense of familiarity, and then recognized the janitor and laughed; and to that house with the pathetic widow and the pretty daughter who wished to take them to board.  They stayed to excuse their blunder, and easily came by the fact that the mother had taken the house that the girl might have a home while she was in New York studying art, and they hoped to pay their way by taking boarders.  Her daughter was at her class now, the mother concluded; and they encouraged her to believe that it could only be a few days till the rest of her scheme was realized.

“I dare say we could be perfectly comfortable there,” March suggested when they had got away.  “Now if we were truly humane we would modify our desires to meet their needs and end this sickening search, wouldn’t we?”

“Yes, but we’re not truly humane,” his wife answered, “or at least not in that sense.  You know you hate boarding; and if we went there I should have them on my sympathies the whole time.”

“I see.  And then you would take it out of me.”

“Then I should take it out of you.  And if you are going to be so weak, Basil, and let every little thing work upon you in that way, you’d better not come to New York.  You’ll see enough misery here.”

“Well, don’t take that superior tone with me, as if I were a child that had its mind set on an undesirable toy, Isabel.”

“Ah, don’t you suppose it’s because you are such a child in some respects that I like you, dear?” she demanded, without relenting.

“But I don’t find so much misery in New York.  I don’t suppose there’s any more suffering here to the population than there is in the country.  And they’re so gay about it all.  I think the outward aspect of the place and the hilarity of the sky and air must get into the people’s blood.  The weather is simply unapproachable; and I don’t care if it is the ugliest place in the world, as you say.  I suppose it is.  It shrieks and yells with ugliness here and there but it never loses its spirits.  That widow is from the country.  When she’s been a year in New York she’ll be as gay—­as gay as an L road.”  He celebrated a satisfaction they both had in the L roads.  “They kill the streets and avenues, but at least they partially hide them, and that is some comfort; and they do triumph