Discuss Question - AllPreviousYears

Read the passage given below and answer the questions: (From 161 to 170) After the cruelest of winters, the house still stood. It was pale, washed clean by elements gone wild, and here there a shutter dangled from a broken hinge. But the structure was sound, the corners had held. I walked around it slowly, studying every detail: the fine edge where window frame met clapboard, the slice of shadow across the roofline, the old wooden railing around the porch. When I climbed the stairs toward the door, I heard the floorboards groan beneath my weight as they had always done. Hello yourself, old friend, I said. Inside, I made those wounds my own again, drew the curtains back, threw open the window, pulled the covers from the furniture, slapped at the upholstery with my hands .. I made myself at home, kicked off my shoes so I could feed the floor beneath my feet again. I tilted my head, read the titles on the spines of all my books. I played old songs I hadn't heard in months, felt the summer music move through me as if my muscles were the strings. It carried me from room to room while I swept away the mustiness of winter, shook the rugs, cleaned cobwebs out of corners, hung laundered linens on the blind to whip dry in the outdoor air. I pulled closed boxes out of closets and unwrapped all my things, slowly, one by one. I held and turned them in my hands before I put them out again on shelves in cupboards and drawers. And when I had each room all full of me again, I showered and washed away the last of winter's claims in hot lather and steam. .... For me, the end of grief was a homecoming like this one, a returning to myself made sweeter by the long separation. I remember well the months that had followed that most unexpected death, when I felt cut loose, caught in my own cold storm far away from all that made me feel at home. I wondered if I would ever again belong to any time or place. People spoke to me of sadness and loss, as if they were burdens to carry in my hands. I nodded in agreement, afraid to tell them that I felt no burdens, only weightlessness. I though the world had pulled itself away from me, that I would drift, beyond reach, forever. But Winter ends and grief does pass as I had reclaimed my house and made it my own again, so I slowly reclaimed my life. I resumed my small daily rituals: a cup of coffee with a friend, long walks at sunset. I felt like myself again, and when I laughed it was my own laugh I heard, rich and full. I had feared that, in my absence, the space that I had left behind would close over from disuse, but I returned to find that my house still stood even after the cruelest of winters. Upon replacing the word ' mustiness' with which of the following words in the phrase "while I swept away the mustiness of winter" (paragraph 2) would the meaning remain unaltered?

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