women was taken away, they had become like other folks.  Like other folks they had a parlor, an undeniable best parlor, shut up and darkened, with all proper carpets, curtains, lounges, and marble-topped tables, too good for human nature’s daily food; and being sustained by this consciousness, they cheerfully went on receiving their friends in the study, and having good times in the old free-and-easy way; for did not everybody know that this room was not their best? and if the furniture was old-fashioned and a little the worse for antiquity, was it not certain that they had better, which they could use, if they would?

“And supposing we wanted to give a party,” said Jane, “how nicely our parlor would light up!  Not that we ever do give parties, but if we should,—­and for a wedding-reception, you know.”

I felt the force of the necessity; it was evident that the four or five hundred extra which we had expended was no more than such solemn possibilities required.

“Now, papa thinks we have been foolish,” said Marianne, “and he has his own way of making a good story of it; but, after all, I desire to know if people are never to get a new carpet.  Must we keep the old one till it actually wears to tatters?” This is a specimen of the reductio ad absurdum which our fair antagonists of the other sex are fond of employing.  They strip what we say of all delicate shadings and illusory phrases, and reduce it to some bare question of fact, with which they make a home-thrust at us.

“Yes, that’s it; are people never to get a new carpet?” echoed Jane.

“My dears,” I replied, “it is a fact that to introduce anything new into an apartment hallowed by many home-associations, where all things have grown old together, requires as much care and adroitness as for an architect to restore an arch or niche in a fine old ruin.  The fault of our carpet was that it was in another style from everything in our room, and made everything in it look dilapidated.  Its colors, material, and air belonged to another manner of life, and were a constant plea for alterations; and you see it actually drove out and expelled the whole furniture of the room, and I am not sure yet that it may not entail on us the necessity of refurnishing the whole house.”

“My dear!” said my wife, in a tone of remonstrance; but Jane and Marianne laughed and colored.

“Confess, now,” said I, looking at them, “have you not had secret designs on the hall- and stair-carpet?”

“Now, papa, how could you know it?  I only said to Marianne that to have Brussels in the parlor and that old mean-looking ingrain carpet in the hall did not seem exactly the thing; and, in fact, you know, mamma, Messrs. Ketchem & Co. showed us such a lovely pattern, designed to harmonize with our parlor-carpet.”

“I know it, girls,” said my wife; “but you know I said at once that such an expense was not to be thought of.”