the mantel.

"And ignore the past? I'm willing. I've no doubt that the children could
get on perfectly well without us, and could find some lot in the scheme
of Providence that would really be just as well for them."

"Yes; or could contrive somehow never to have existed. I should insist
upon that. If they are, don't you see that we couldn't wish them not to
be?"

"Oh yes; I see your point; it's simply incontrovertible."

She laughed and said: "Well, at any rate, if we can't find a flat to suit
us we can all crowd into these three rooms somehow, for the winter, and
then browse about for meals. By the week we could get them much cheaper;
and we could save on the eating, as they do in Europe. Or on something
else."

"Something else, probably," said March. "But we won't take this apartment
till the ideal furnished flat winks out altogether. We shall not have any
trouble. We can easily find some one who is going South for the winter
and will be glad to give up their flat 'to the right party' at a nominal
rent. That's my notion. That's what the Evanses did one winter when they
came on here in February. All but the nominality of the rent."

"Yes, and we could pay a very good rent and still save something on
letting our house. You can settle yourselves in a hundred different ways
in New York, that is one merit of the place. But if everything else
fails, we can come back to this. I want you to take the refusal of it,
Basil. And we'll commence looking this very evening as soon as we've had