I made a study that day of the girls’ heads at school, and from that time improved in my style of wearing it, and I brushed it with zeal every day afterward.  Alice had my room kept so neatly for me that it soon came to be a reproach, and I was finally taught by her example how to adjust chairs, books, and mats in straight lines, to fold articles without making odd corners and wrinkles; at last I improved so much that I could find what I was seeking in a drawer, without harrowing it with my fingers, and began to see beauty in order.  Alice had a talent for housekeeping, and her talent was fostered by the exacting, systematic taste of her husband.  He examined many matters which are usually left to women, and he applied his business talent to the art of living, succeeding in it as he did in everything else.

Alice told me that Charles had been poor; that his father was never on good terms with him.  She fancied they were too much alike; so he had turned him off to shift for himself, when quite young.  When she met him, he was the agent of a manufacturing company, in the town where her parents lived, and even then, in his style of living, he surpassed the young men of her acquaintance.  The year before they were married his father died, and as Charles was his only child, he left his farm to him, and ten thousand dollars—­all he had.  The executors of the will were obliged to advertise for him, not having any clue to his place of residence.  He sold the farm as soon as it was put in his hands, took the ten thousand dollars, and came back to be married.  A year after, he went to Rosville, and built a cotton factory, three miles from town, and the cottage, and then brought her and Edward, who was a few months old, to live in it.  He had since enlarged the works, employed more operatives, and was making a great deal of money.  Morgeson’s Mills, she believed, were known all over the country.  Charles was his own agent, as well as sole owner.  There were no mills beside his in the neighborhood; to that fact she ascribed the reason of his having no difficulties in Rosville, and no enmities; for she knew he had no wish to make friends.  The Rosville people, having no business in common with him, had no right to meddle, and could find but small excuse for comment.  They spent, she said, five or six thousand a year; most of it went in horses, she was convinced, and she believed his flowers cost him a great deal too.  “You must know, Cassandra, that his heart is with his horses and his flowers.  He is more interested in them than he is in his children.”

She looked vexed when she said this; but I took hold of the edge of her finely embroidered cape, and asked her how much it cost.  She laughed, and said, “Fifty dollars; but you see how many lapels it has.  I have still a handsomer one that was seventy-five.”

“Are they a part of the six thousand a year, Alice?”

“Of course; but Charles wishes me to dress, and never stints me in money; and, after all, I like for him to spend his money in his own way.  It vexes me sometimes, he buys such wild brutes, and endangers his life with them.  He rides miles and miles every year; and it relieves the tedium of his journeys to have horses he must watch, I suppose.”