So we men reason; but women do not always think as we do.  There is a virulent demon of housekeeping, not wholly cast out in the best of them, and which often breaks out in unguarded moments.  In fact, Miss Marianne, being on the lookout for furniture wherewith to begin a new establishment, and Jane, who had accompanied her in her peregrinations, had more than once thrown out little disparaging remarks on the time-worn appearance of our establishment, suggesting comparison with those of more modern-furnished rooms.

“It is positively scandalous, the way our furniture looks,” I one day heard her declaring to her mother; “and this old rag of a carpet!”

My feelings were hurt, not the less so that I knew that the large cloth which covered the middle of the floor, and which the women call a bocking, had been bought and nailed down there, after a solemn family-counsel, as the best means of concealing the too evident darns which years of good cheer had made needful in our stanch old household friend, the three-ply carpet, made in those days when to be a three-ply was a pledge of continuance and service.

Well, it was a joyous and bustling day, when, after one of those domestic whirlwinds which the women are fond of denominating house-cleaning, the new Brussels carpet was at length brought in and nailed down, and its beauty praised from mouth to mouth.  Our old friends called in and admired, and all seemed to be well, except that I had that light and delicate presage of changes to come which indefinitely brooded over me.

The first premonitory symptom was the look of apprehensive suspicion with which the female senate regarded the genial sunbeams that had always glorified our bow-window.

“This house ought to have inside blinds,” said Marianne, with all the confident decision of youth; “this carpet will be ruined, if the sun is allowed to come in like that.”

“And that dirty little canary must really be hung in the kitchen,” said Jane; “he always did make such a litter, scattering his seed-chippings about; and he never takes his bath without flirting out some water.  And, mamma, it appears to me it will never do to have the plants here.  Plants are always either leaking through the pots upon the carpet, or scattering bits of blossoms and dead leaves, or some accident upsets or breaks a pot.  It was no matter, you know, when we had the old carpet; but this we really want to have kept nice.”

Mamma stood her ground for the plants,—­darlings of her heart for many a year,—­but temporized, and showed that disposition towards compromise which is most inviting to aggression.