“You know, Henry, that cousin Sally Gray is coming here on a visit week after next.  Now I do want to put the very best face on to things while she is here.  We were married at the same time, and I hear that her husband is getting rich.  I feel a little pride about the matter, and don’t want her to think that we’re growing worse off than when we began life, and can’t afford to replace this shabby old carpet by a new one.”  No further argument was needed.  Mr. Cartwright had sixty dollars in one of the bureau drawers,—­a fact well known to his wife.  And it was also well known to her that it was the accumulation of very careful savings, designed, when the sum reached one hundred dollars, to cancel a loan made by a friend, at a time when sickness and a death in the family had run up their yearly expenses beyond the year’s income.  Very desirous was Mr. Cartwright to pay off this loan, and he had felt lighter in heart as those aggregate of his savings came nearer and nearer to the sum required for that purpose.

But he had no firmness to oppose his wife in anything.  Her wishes in this instance, as in many others, he unwisely made a law.  The argument about cousin Sally Gray was irresistible.  No more than his wife did he wish to look poor in her eyes; and so, for the sake of her eyes, a new carpet was bought, and the old one—­not by any means as worn and faded as the language of his wife indicated—­sent up stairs to do second-hand duty in the spare bedroom.

Not within the limit of forty dollars was the expense confined.  A more costly pattern than could be obtained for one dollar a yard tempted the eyes of Mrs. Cartwright, and abstracted from her husband’s savings the sum of over fifty dollars.  Mats and rugs to go with the carpet were indispensable, to give the parlor the right effect in the eyes of cousin Sally Gray, and the purchase of these absorbed the remainder of Mr. Cartwright’s carefully hoarded sixty dollars.

Unfortunately, for the comfortable condition of Mrs. Cartwright’s mind, the new carpet, with its flaunting colors, put wholly out of countenance the cane-seat chairs and modest pier table, and gave to the dull paper on the wall a duller aspect.  Before, she had scarcely noticed the hangings on the Venetian blinds, now, it seemed as if they had lost their freshness in a day; and the places where they were broken, and had been sewed again, were singularly apparent every time her eye rested upon them.

“These blinds do look dreadfully!” she said to her husband, on the day after the carpet went down.  “Can you remember what they cost?”

“Eight dollars,” replied Mr. Cartwright.

“So much?” The wife sighed as she spoke.

“Yes, that was the price.  I remember it very well.”

“I wonder what new hangings would cost?” Mrs. Cartwright’s manner grew suddenly more cheerful, as the suggestion of a cheaper way to improve the windows came into her thought.