“Say three and a-half, and it’s a bargain,” was the only reply made to this by my economical husband.

I was greatly in hopes that the man would decline this offer; but, was disappointed.  He hesitated for some time, and, at last, said: 

“Well, I don’t care, take them along; though it is throwing them away.  Such a bargain you will never get again, if you live to be as old as Mathuselah.  But, now, don’t you want something else?  I can sell you cheaper and better articles in the furniture line than you can get in the city.  Small profits and quick sales—­I go in for the nimble sixpence.”

My husband was in the sphere of attraction, and I saw that it would take a stronger effort on my part to draw him out than I wished to make.  So, I yielded with as good a grace as possible, and aided in the selection of a cheap sofa, a cheap, overgrown centre table, and two or three other article that were almost “thrown away.”

Well, our parlor was furnished with its new dress in good time, and made quite a respectable appearance.  Mr. Smith was delighted with everything; the more particularly as the cost had been so moderate.  I had my own thoughts on the subject; and looked very confidently for some evidences of imperfection in our great bargains.  I was not very long kept in suspense.  One morning, about two weeks after all had been fitted out so elegantly, while engaged in dusting the chairs, a part of the mahogany ornament in the back of one of them fell off.  On the next day, another showed the same evidence of imperfect workmanship.  A few evenings afterwards, as we sat at the centre table, one of our children leaned on it rather heavily, when there was a sudden crack, and the side upon which he was bearing his weight, swayed down the distance of half an inch or more.  The next untoward event was the dropping of one of its feet by the sofa, and the warping up of a large piece of veneering on the back.  While lamenting over this, we discovered a broken spring ready to make its way through the hair cloth covering.

“So much for cheap furniture,” said I, in a tone of involuntary triumph.

My husband looked at me half reproachfully, and so I said no more.

It was now needful to send for a cabinet maker, and submit our sofa and chairs to his handy workmanship.  He quickly discovered other imperfections, and gave us the consoling information that our fine furniture was little above fourth-rate in quality, and dear at any price.  A ten dollar bill was required to pay the damage they had already sustained, even under our careful hands.

A more striking evidence of our folly in buying cheap furniture was, however, yet to come.  An intimate friend came in one evening to sit a few hours with us.  After conversing for a time, both he and my husband took up books, and commenced reading, while I availed myself of the opportunity to write a brief letter.  Our visitor, who was a pretty stout man, had the bad fault of leaning back in his chair, and balancing himself on its hind legs; an experiment most trying to the best (sic) mahogahy chairs that were ever made.