rrier in the case is, that there really _is no
money to get any more_."

"Ah, well, then, if there isn't, we must see what we can do with these,
and summon all the good fairies to our aid," said Mary. "There's your
little cabinet-maker, John, will look over the things, and furbish them
up; there's that broken arm of the chair must be mended, and everything
revarnished; then I have found such a lovely _rep_, of just the richest
shade of maroon, inclining to crimson, and when we come to cover the
lounges and arm-chairs and sofas and ottomans all alike, you know they
will be quite another thing."

"Trust you for that, Mary! By-the-by, I've found a nice little woman,
who has worked on upholstery, who will come in by the day, and be the
hands that shall execute the decrees of your taste."

"Yes, I am sure we shall get on capitally. Do you know that I'm almost
glad we can't get new things? it's a sort of enterprise to see what we
can do with old ones."

"Now, you see, Mary," said John, seating himself on a lime-cask which
the plasterers had left, and taking out his memorandum-book, "you see,
I've calculated this thing all over; I've found a way by which I can
make our rooms beautiful and attractive without a cent expended on new
furniture."

"Well, let's hear."

"Well, my way is short and simple. We must put things into our rooms
that people will look at, so that they will forget to look at the
furniture, and never once trouble their heads about it. People never
look at furniture so long as there is anything else to look at; just as
Napoleon, when away on one of his expeditions, being told that the
French populace were getting disaffected, wrote back, 'Gild the _dome
des Invalides_' and so they gilded it, and the people, looking at that,
forgot everything else."

"But I'm not clear yet," said Mary, "what is coming of this rhetoric."

"Well, then, Mary, I'll tell you. A suit of new carved black-walnut
furniture, severe in taste and perfect in style, such as I should choose
at David and Saul's, could not be got under three hundred dollars, and I
haven't the three hundred to give. What, then, shall we do? We must fall
back on our resources; we must look over our treasures. We have our
proof cast of the great glorious head of the Venus di Milo; we have
those six beautiful photographs of Rome, that Brown brought to us; we
have the great German lithograph of the San Sisto Mother and Child, and
we have the two angel-heads,