Chapter II

For the first time in her housekeeping experience, Mrs. Sparrow felt a little discontented, after her sister-in-law had gone. Her pleasant little house looked smaller than ever before; its plain, substantial furniture looked coarse and common. Why couldn’t her husband have some of the fine things that other people had? Why couldn’t she have a carved rosewood table, antique chairs, a tapestry carpet, and velvet draperies at the windows? Her husband owned the house in which they lived, and had over a thousand dollars in the bank. Mrs. Walbend, in the next house, had all these fine things, and her husband got but a thousand dollars a year, while Mr. Swallow got fifteen hundred.

“Charles,” said she, when her husband came home to tea that evening, “I have been thinking of something.”

“Have you, indeed! That is rather remarkable,” replied Mr. Swallow, with a smile.

“You don’t want to know what, I suppose.”

“I do! I am ‘dying with curiosity,’ as the ladies say.”

“Well, then, I will tell you; but don’t be cross about it.”

Mr. Swallow promised not to be cross about it.

“I have been thinking about having some new furniture.”

The husband stuffed a tea roll into his mouth. Evidently the subject was not a very inviting one to him.

“I want you to entirely refurnish the house.”

Mr. Swallow upset his tea.

“You can afford it, can’t you?”

“I think not, my dear.”

“Yes, you can, Charles.”

“What has got into you, Maria?” asked her husband, very seriously.

“You promised not to be cross.”

“I won’t be; but I am very much surprised. I thought you were perfectly satisfied with your house and furniture.”

“We have everything comfortable, but——” Mrs. Swallow paused.

“What more do you want?”

“Our furniture is not in fashion.”

“The d—euce it isn’t!”

“No; and I want some antique chairs, a carved centre table, a tapestry carpet, and velvet draperies, for the windows——”

“What else?”

“And a mirror seven feet high to go between the windows.”

“Call it twelve, my dear.”

“If you could only hear Belladonna tell of the houses in New York. Why, she says the Hon. Mrs. Chopstick has a mirror in her parlor which is twenty feet high by fifteen wide.”

“Did she tell you how big the doors of that house were?”

“And the carpet which General Smallhead bought last winter cost nineteen dollars and a half a yard.”

“And a half?”

“Yes; they asked twenty, but the General bought so much that they took off half a dollar.”

“Our rooms are so small that we should have to pay twenty, then,” added Mr. Swallow, with a laugh.

“Other folks live so fine, why can’t we?”

“Other folks have money.”

“So have you.”

“A little; but I mean to keep it in preference to buying this trumpery with it.”

“Since Belladonna has been here, I feel quite discontented.”

“Belladonna is a silly creature, and I thank my stars that my wife is not like her,” replied Mr. Swallow, chucking the pretty little pouting wife under the chin.

“But she knows what the fashions are.”

“And that is all she does know.”

“She says we have ‘everything comfortable.’”

“Which is very true.”

“But we are not in style.”

“Pshaw!”

“Won’t you buy some more stylish furniture, Charles?”

“No, my dear; I cannot afford it.”

“If you could only hear Belladonna talk!”

“Probably she makes things appear full as bright as they are.”

“Tim is doing a great business; making thousands and thousands of dollars.”

“I hope he is.”

“Why, Charles! he has taken a great store in Broadway, and keeps, I don’t know how many clerks he said—fifty or a hundred.”

Mr. Swallow’s cough troubled him.

“Maria, you used to be very contented and happy. Don’t let this silly idea get possession of you. Our house is furnished very well. If I had twenty thousand dollars, I would not furnish it any better—that is, not to please myself. If Tim can afford to live in better shape than I do, let him; it will not disturb me. Don’t think any thing more about it.”

“I won’t, Charles; but I felt so cheap when Belladonna talked so familiarly of all those fine things, and of her acquaintances among the élite; I felt as though I was nobody.”

“Wait, my dear, wait a while. Time will show what all these great pretensions amount to. I hope Tim will do well; but with such loose ideas of economy as he appears to have, and, more than all with such a silly, extravagant wife, there is much to fear.”

Mrs. Swallow was satisfied. The words of her more experienced husband banished the feelings of chagrin and discontentment she had permitted herself to harbor. A careful reconsideration of Belladonna’s extravagant stories convinced her that some of them, if not made out of “whole cloth,” were greatly exaggerated, and she came to the conclusion that her sister-in-law was no more of a lady in reality than she was herself.