“La! yes,” said Rosa, “I forgot.  We shall have to get furniture now.  How nice!” It was a pleasure the man of forecast could have willingly dispensed with; but he smiled at her, and they discussed furniture, and Christopher, whose retentive memory had picked up a little of everything, said there were wholesale upholsterers in the City who sold cheaper than the West-end houses, and he thought the best way was to measure the rooms in the Bijou, and go to the city with a clear idea of what they wanted; ask the prices of various necessary articles, and then make a list, and demand a discount of fifteen per cent on the whole order, being so considerable, and paid for in cash.

Rosa acquiesced, and told Christopher he was the cleverest man in England.

About nine o’clock Mrs. Cole came in to condole with her friend, and heard the good news.  When Rosa told her how they thought of furnishing, she said, “Oh no, you must not do that; you will pay double for everything.  That is the mistake Johnnie and I made; and after that a friend of mine took me to the auction-rooms, and I saw everything sold—­oh, such bargains; half, and less than half, their value.  She has furnished her house almost entirely from sales, and she has the loveliest things in the world—­such ducks of tables, and jardinieres, and things; and beautiful rare china—­her house swarms with it—­for an old song.  A sale is the place.  And then so amusing.”

“Yes, but,” said Christopher, “I should not like my wife to encounter a public room.”

“Not alone, of course; but with me.  La!  Dr. Staines, they are too full of buying and selling to trouble their heads about us.”

“Oh, Christopher, do let me go with her.  Am I always to be a child?”

Thus appealed to before a stranger, Staines replied warmly, “No, dearest, no; you cannot please me better than by beginning life in earnest.  If you two ladies together can face an auction-room, go by all means; only I must ask you not to buy china or ormulu, or anything that will break or spoil, but only solid, good furniture.”

“Won’t you come with us?”

“No; or you might feel yourself in leading-strings.  Remember the Bijou is a small house; choose your furniture to fit it, and then we shall save something by its being so small.”

This was Wednesday.  There was a weekly sale in Oxford Street on Fridays; and the ladies made the appointment accordingly.

Next day, after breakfast, Christopher was silent and thoughtful awhile, and at last said to Rosa, “I’ll show you I don’t look on you as a child; I’ll consult you in a delicate matter.”

Rosa’s eyes sparkled.

“It is about my Uncle Philip.  He has been very cruel; he has wounded me deeply; he has wounded me through my wife.  I never thought he would refuse to come to our marriage.”

“And did he?  You never showed me his letter.”

“You were not my wife then.  I kept an affront from you; but now, you see, I keep nothing.”