ot immediately available. We should not
only take sufficient time to study conditions and scheme carefully for
the home, but must sagaciously bear in mind that where real estate is
in active demand anxiety to purchase stiffens prices. To bide one's
time may mean a considerable saving. However, life, as we plan now to
live it, is short enough at most, and we should not cheat ourselves out
of too much immediate happiness by waiting for the money-saving
opportunity.

The question of neighborhood, if we decide to remain within city
limits, is a difficult one. In most of the larger places no one can
accurately foretell the future of even the most attractive residence
district. Factories and business houses may not obtrude, but flats are
almost sure to come. Few cottages are being constructed in cities,
partly because of lack of demand, but principally because they do not
pay sufficient income on the investment. Consequently the houses that
are to be had are seldom modern. Sometimes they pass into the hands of
careless tenants and the neighborhood soon shows deterioration. Still,
if we are determined to remain in the city and take our chances, it is
possible by careful investigation to discover congenial surroundings.
Many of the essential tests of the suburban home that we shall discuss
hereafter will apply also to the house in a strictly residence district
of a large city; practically all of them to the house in a smaller town.

CITY OR COUNTRY

The chances are, however, that we shall choose the suburb. But before
we desert J 72, or whatever our shelf in the apartment building may be,
we may well remind ourselves that we are also to desert some of the
things that have made city life enjoyable. For one thing, with all our
growling at the landlord, we have been able to cast upon him many
burdens that we are now to take upon ourselves. Some of our sarcasms
are quite certain to come home to roost. The details of purchasing
fuel, of maintaining heat, of making repairs, are now to come under our
jurisdiction, and we shall see whether we manage these duties better
than the man who is paid a lump sum to assume them.

RENUNCIATIONS

Living in a flat, or even in a city house, we do not know, nor care to
know, who the people above or next door to us may be; and they are in
precisely the same position with regard to us. Mere adjacency gives us
no claim upon their acquaintance, nor does it put us at the mercy