“What made you ask about Darley’s ‘Margaret,’ Laura?”

“Oh,—­only I wanted to see it.”

“Don’t you think,” said I, suddenly reviving with a new idea, “that a portfolio of engravings is a handsome thing to have in one’s parlor or library?  Add to it, you know, from time to time; but begin with ‘Margaret,’ perhaps, and Retzsch’s ‘Hamlet’ or ’Faust,’—­or a collection of fine wood engravings, such as Mrs. Harris has,—­and perhaps one of Albert Duerer’s ugly things to show off with.  What do you think of it, Laura?”

“Do you ever look at Mrs. Harris’s nowadays, Del?”

“Why, no,—­I can’t say I do, now.  But I have looked at them when people were there.  How she would shrug and shiver when they would put their fingers on her nice engravings, and soil, or bend and break them at the corners!  Somebody asked her once, all the time breaking up a fine Bridgewater Madonna she had just given forty dollars for, ’What is this engraving worth, now?’ She answered, coldly,—­’Five minutes ago I thought it worth forty dollars:  now I would take forty cents for it.’”

“Not very polite, I should say,” said Laura.  “And rather cruel too, on the whole; since the offence was doubtless the result of ignorance only.”

“I know.  But Mrs. Harris said she was so vexed she could not restrain herself; and besides, she would infinitely prefer that he should be mortally offended, at least to the point of losing his acquaintance, to having her best pictures spoiled.  She said he cost too much altogether.”

“She should have the corners covered somehow.  To be sure, it would be better for people to learn how to treat nice engravings,—­but they won’t; and every day somebody comes to see you, and talks excellent sense, all the while either rolling up your last ‘Art Journal,’ or breaking the face of Bryant’s portrait in, or some equal mischief.  I don’t think engravings pay, to keep,—­on the whole; do you, Del?” And Laura smiled while she rocked.

“Well, perhaps not.  I am sure I shouldn’t be amiable enough to have mine thumbed and ruined; and certainly, if they are only to be kept in a portfolio, it seems hardly worth while.”

“So I think,” said Laura.

This vexatious consideration—­for so it had become—­of how I should spend my aunt’s money, came at length almost to outweigh the pleasure of having it to spend.  It was perhaps a little annoyance, at first, but by repetition became of course great.  The prick of a pin is nothing; but if it prick three weeks, sleeping and waking, “there is differences, look you!”

“What shall I do with it?” became a serious matter.  Suppose I left the regions of art and beauty particularly, and came back and down to what would be suitable on the whole, and agreeable to my aunt, whose taste was evidently beyond what Albany could afford, or she would not have sent me to the Modern Athens to buy the right thing.  Nothing that would break; else, Sevres china would be nice: