Joan recalled vividly the family search for a house that suited both her father's taste and her mother's pocket-book. The streets had seemed to her gray, endless cañons, from whose pavements the heat arose and eddied in dizzying waves. From within dark doorways women in dressing-sacks, waving palm-leaf fans, gazed out at them languidly. Block after block they traversed of houses that seemed as afraid of differing from each other as men in evening dress; again they came to neighborhoods where each dwelling stood at a bias angle from the street, as if hoping to achieve an impossible privacy by turning a cold shoulder upon its neighbor. And everywhere they huddled together as close as possible, presenting a solid front of masonry to repel invasion. Where was the space her father had boasted, the room to breathe? Joan had gazed longingly down certain vistas of tree-lined avenues, lined with pleasant mansions; or into compact green courts where there were smaller homes, with gardens. But these the elders passed without inquiry. They were as quick as house-agents at guessing rents. At last an abode was found that seemed to the Major suitable upon all counts. Mrs. Darcy, gazing up at its tall, narrow brick front, said with a slight sigh, "Isn't there a good deal of it to keep clean, dear?" It was the first time Joan had noticed her mother's new little air of weary indifference. "Ah, but in the South one cannot be cramped for room," replied the Major largely. "There is hospitality to be considered! You must remember that our daughter's début into society will take place from this house, my love. Who knows?--perhaps her wedding!" He pinched Joan's cheek playfully. "How do you like it, Dollykins?" "Not at all," she replied, too discouraged to be euphonious just then. "It's hideous, and there's a grocer-shop opposite, and Mother'll never sleep with these horrid cars jangling by. Why can't we have a house in one of those pretty green courts, Daddy?" The Major looked pained. Mary came to the rescue. A few years ago she would have explained bluntly that they could not afford one of the pretty green courts. Now she said with a rallying smile, "What! Not a banal, stupid, uninteresting new bungalow such as one might have in Pittsburgh, or Oshkosh, or Kalamazoo, Michigan! Where's your sense of local color, child? The atmosphere wouldn't be right at all!" Joan thought that the atmosphere of this neighborhood seemed to be largely compounded of soot and sewer-gas; but she did not say so. Richard Darcy, brightening, pointed out that while the house indeed faced a grocery-shop (so convenient for Ellen!), its rear was separated only by an alley from the rear of a house which faced upon a very fine avenue indeed; a backyard in which at the moment lingerie of a faint flesh-pink disported lacy ruffles and kicked airy silken limbs upon a clothes line. (Of this lingerie more anon.)