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 over
their prostrate forms with a savage exultation that is intoxicating.
Those bends in the L that you get in the corner of Washington Square, or
just below the Cooper Institute--they're the gayest things in the world.
Perfectly atrocious, of course, but incomparably picturesque! And the
whole city is so," said March, "or else the L would never have got built
here. New York may be splendidly gay or squalidly gay; but, prince or
pauper, it's gay always."

"Yes, gay is the word," she admitted, with a sigh. "But frantic. I can't
get used to it. They forget death, Basil; they forget death in New York."

"Well, I don't know that I've ever found much advantage in remembering
it."