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  “It’s the only Eden I ever knew! Do you like it over here, Miss Tucker, or are you homesick now that your friend is in America?”

“Oh, I’m never homesick; for the reason that I have never had any home since I was ten years old, when I was left an orphan. I have n’t any deep roots in New York; it’s like the ocean, too big to love. I respect and admire the ocean, but I love a little river. You know the made-over aphorism: ‘The home is where the hat is’? For ‘hat’ read ‘trunk,’ and you have my case, precisely.”

“That’s because you are absurdly, riotously young! It won’t suit you forever.”

“Does anything suit one forever?” asked Tommy frivolously, not cynically, but making Appleton a trifle uncomfortable nevertheless. “Anything except singing, I mean? Perhaps you feel the same way about writing? You have n’t told me anything about your work, and I’ve confided my past history, present prospects, and future aspirations to you!”