“These chairs have such strong, well-made, mahogany frames it would be a pity not to use them.  Now,” continued Mary, “about the pictures on the wall.  Can’t we consign them all to the attic?  We might use some of the frames.  I’ll contribute unframed copies of ‘The Angelus’ and ‘The Gleaners,’ by Millet; and I think they would fit into these plain mahogany frames which contain the very old-fashioned set of pictures named respectively ‘The Lovers,’ ‘The Declaration,’ ‘The Lovers’ Quarrel’ and ‘The Marriage.’  They constitute a regular art gallery.  I’ll use a couple of the frames for some small Colonial and apple blossom pictures I have, that I just love, by Wallace Nutting.  Mine are all unframed; ‘Maiden Reveries,’ ‘A Canopied Roof’ and a ’Ton of Bloom,’ I think are sweet.  Those branches of apple trees, covered with a mass of natural-looking pink blossoms, are exquisite.”

“Yes,” remarked Aunt Sarah, “they look exactly like our old Baldwin, Winesap and Cider apple trees in the old, south meadow in the Spring.  And, Mary, we’ll discard those two chromos, popular a half century ago, of two beautiful cherubs called respectively, ‘Wide Awake’ and ‘Fast Asleep,’ given as premiums to a popular magazine.  I don’t remember if the magazine was ‘Godey’s,’ ‘Peterson’s’ or ‘Home Queen’; they have good, plain, mahogany frames which we can use.”

“And, Aunt Sarah,” said Mary, “we can cut out the partition in this large, black-walnut frame, containing lithograph pictures of General George Washington, ‘the Father of his Country’ (we are informed in small letters at the bottom of the picture), and of General Andrew Jackson, ‘the hero of New Orleans.’  Both men are pictured on horseback, on gayly-caparisoned, prancing white steeds, with scarlet saddle cloth, edged with gold bullion fringe.  The Generals are pictured clad in blue velvet coats with white facings of cloth or satin vest and tight-fitting knee breeches, also white and long boots reaching to the knee.  Gold epaulettes are on their shoulders, and both are in the act of lifting their old-fashioned Continental hats, the advancing army showing faintly in the background.  How gorgeously they are arrayed!  We will use this frame for the excellent, large copy you have of ‘The Doctor’ and the pictured faces of the German composers—­Beethoven, Wagner, Mendelssohn, Haydn, Schubert and Mozart, which I have on a card with a shaded brown background, will exactly fit into this plain frame of narrow molding, from which I have just removed the old cardboard motto, ‘No place like home,’ done with green-shaded zephyr in cross-stitch.”

[Illustration: 

A-29 An Old Sampler
A-30 Old Woven Basket
A-31 Wax Cross
A-32 Old Spinning Wheel]

“Now, Mary, with the couple of comfortable rockers which I intend purchasing, I think we have about finished planning our room.”