“What do you think I paid for this?” said she, referring to a showy dressing-bureau; and, as she spoke, she took hold of the suspended looking-glass, and moved the upper portion of it forward.  “Only seventeen dollars!”

The words had scarcely passed her lips, ere the looking-glass broke away from one of the screws that held it in the standards, and fell, crashing, at our feet!

It cost just seven dollars to replace the glass.  But, that was not all—­over thirty dollars were paid during the first year for repairs.  And this is only the beginning of troubles.

Cheap furniture is, in most cases, the dearest that housekeepers can buy.  It is always breaking, and usually costs more, in a year or two, than the difference between its price and that of first-rate articles; to say nothing of the vexation and want of satisfaction that always attends its possession.  Better be content with fewer articles, if the purse be low, and have them good.

While on this subject, I will incorporate in these “Confessions” an “Experience” of my sister and her husband, Mr. and Mrs. John Jones.  Mr. Jones is, in some respects, very much like Mr. Smith, and, as will be seen in the story about to be given, my sister’s ideas of things and my own, run quite parallel to each other.  The story has found its way, elsewhere, into print, for Mr. Jones, like myself, has a natural fondness for types.  But its repetition here will do no harm, and bring it before many who would not otherwise see it.

CHAPTER V.

Is it economy?

The “Experience” of my relative, Mr. John Jones, referred to in the preceding chapter, is given in what follows.  After reading it, we think that few young housekeepers will commit the folly of indulging to any very great extent in cheap furniture.

We had been married five years, and during the time had boarded for economy’s sake.  But the addition of one after another to our family, admonished us that it was getting time to enlarge our borders; and so we were determined to go to housekeeping.  In matters of domestic economy both my wife and myself were a little “green,” but I think that I was the greenest of the two.

To get a house was our first concern, and to select furniture was our next.  The house was found after two months’ diligent search, and at the expense of a good deal of precious shoe leather.  Save me from another siege at house-hunting!  I would about as soon undertake to build a suitable dwelling with my own hands, as to find one “exactly the thing” already up, and waiting with open doors for a tenant.  All the really desirable houses that we found ticketed “to let,” were at least two prices above our limit, and most of those within our means we would hardly have lived in rent free.