ery night in a mahogany four-post bed:
and he could not help thinking that if he did not get the mahogany
four-post bed with the carved top, perhaps he would not care to marry
Ellen at all.

The next time he saw her their talk turned upon the house she had found
for him, and she said if he did not take it he would certainly go back
to America in the spring. She forgot herself a little; her father had
to check her, and Ned returned home sure in his mind that she would
marry him--if he asked her. And the next day he chose a pair of
trousers that he thought becoming--they were cut wide in the leg and
narrow over the instep. He looked out for a cravat that she had not
seen him wear, and he chose the largest, and he put on his braided
coat. He could not see that his moustache was not in keeping with his
clothes: he had often intended to shave it, but to-day was not the day
for shaving. She had liked his moustache, and he thought it would be a
pity she should not enjoy it, however reprehensible her taste for it
might be. And he pondered his side-whiskers, remembering they were in
keeping with his costume (larger whiskers would be still more in
keeping), and amused by his own fantastic notions, he thought he was
beginning to look like the gentleman of seventy or eighty years ago
that he had seen in varnished maplewood frames in the drawing-room at
the Cronins'. His trousers were of a later period, but they were,
nevertheless, contemporaneous with the period of the mahogany
sideboard, and that was what he liked best.

Suddenly he stopped, remembering that he had never wished to be
married, because he never thought that he could love the same woman
always, and now he asked himself if Ellen were an exception, and if he
had been led back to Ireland to marry her. He had grown tired of women
before, but it seemed to him that he never could grow tired of her.
That remained to be seen; the one certain thing was that he was going
to propose to her.

He was told she was in the garden, and he was glad to dispense with the
servant's assistance; he would find his way there himself, and, after
some searching, he found the wicket. The thing itself and its name
pleased him. When he had a garden he would have a wicket. He had
already begun to associate Ellen with her garden. She was never so much
herself as when attending her flowers, and to please her he had
affected an interest in them, but when he had said that the flowers
were beautifu