from the same; we have that lovely golden
twilight sketch of Heade's; we have some sea-photographs of Bradford's;
we have an original pen-and-ink sketch by Billings; and then, as before,
we have 'our picture.' What has been the use of our watching at the
gates and waiting at the doors of Beauty all our lives, if she hasn't
thrown us out a crust now and then, so that we might have it for time of
need? Now, you see, Mary, we must make the toilet of our rooms just as a
pretty woman makes hers when money runs low, and she sorts and freshens
her ribbons, and matches them to her hair and eyes, and, with a bow
here, and a bit of fringe there, and a button somewhere else, dazzles us
into thinking that she has an infinity of beautiful attire. Our rooms
are new and pretty of themselves, to begin with; the tint of the paper,
and the rich coloring of the border, corresponding with the furniture
and carpets, will make them seem prettier. And now for arrangement. Take
this front-room. I propose to fill those two recesses each side of the
fireplace with my books, in their plain pine cases, just breast-high
from the floor: they are stained a good dark color, and nobody need
stick a pin in them to find out that they are not rosewood. The top of
these shelves on either side to be covered with the same stuff as the
furniture, finished with a crimson fringe. On top of the shelves on one
side of the fireplace I shall set our noble Venus di Milo, and I shall
buy at Cicci's the lovely Clytie and put it the other side. Then I shall
get of Williams and Everett two of their chromo-lithographs, which give
you all the style and charm of the best English water-color school. I
will have the lovely Bay of Amalfi over my Venus, because she came from
those suns and skies of Southern Italy, and I will hang Lake Como over
my Clytie. Then, in the middle, over the fireplace, shall be 'our
picture.' Over each door shall hang one of the lithographed angel-heads
of the San Sisto, to watch our going-out and coming-in; and the glorious
Mother and Child shall hang opposite the Venus di Milo, to show how
Greek and Christian unite in giving the noblest type to womanhood. And
then, when we have all our sketches and lithographs framed and hung here
and there, and your flowers blooming as they always do, and your ivies
wandering and rambling as they used to, and hanging in the most graceful
ways and places, and all those little shells and ferns and vases, which
you ar