knew I would not be happy there. I
like clean rooms, but if it's a matter of choosing between foul air
_without_ dust and fresh air _with_ dust I'll take the dust every time.
I'd feel like a funeral to live in a house where the curtains and shades
were down every day, summer and winter, to keep the sunshine out of the
rooms and prevent the jade-green and china-blue and old-rose of the rugs
from fading.

The fourth place was in suburban Philadelphia, fifty minutes' ride from
the heart of the city. It was a big colonial house set in a great yard,
a relic of the days when gardens still flourished in the city and the
breathing spaces allotted to householders were larger than at the
present time. As we went up the shrubbery-bordered walk to the pillared
porch I said, "I want to live here."

Mrs. McCrea, the boarding-house mistress, did not object to the music,
provided I took the large room on the third floor and did all my
practicing between the hours of eight and five, when the other boarders
were gone to business. The price of the room is seven dollars a week.

I took the room at once, before Mrs. McCrea had any chance of changing
her mind. I thought it was a very pleasant room, with its two windows
looking out on the green yard.

But later, after Virginia had gone and I was left alone in the room, the
queerest feeling came over me. I never knew what it meant to be
homesick, but I think I had a touch of it this afternoon in this room. I
hated this place for about half an hour. I saw that the paint is soiled,
the rug worn, the pictures cheap, the bed and bureau trimmed with
gingerbready scrolls and knobs. It's so different from the blue and
white room I slept in last night, so different from my plain,
old-fashioned room at home. "It's all right," I said to myself, half
crying, "but it's so different."

Fortunately the word _different_ struck a responsive chord in my memory.
I remembered that I wanted different things, and smiled again and dashed
the tears away. I arranged my own pictures and few belongings about the
room and felt more at home. After I had dressed and stood ready to go
down for my first dinner in my new home I felt happier. To be living, to
be young and enthusiastic, to possess the colossal courage of youth, was
enough to bring happiness into my heart again. I'm going to like this
place. I'm going to work and play and live in this wonderful city.

Mrs. McCrea introduced the "New boarder" and I took m