oth all repeated the same colors, in
the same cheap material. A simple straw matting was laid over the
floor, and, with a few books, a vase of flowers, and one or two
prints, the room had a home-like and even elegant air, that struck us
all the more forcibly from its contrast with the usual tawdry,
slovenly style of such parlors.

"The means used for getting up this effect were the most inexpensive
possible,--simply the following out, in cheap material, a law of
uniformity and harmony, which always will produce beauty. In the same
manner, I have seen a room furnished, whose effect was really gorgeous
in color, where the only materials used were Turkey-red cotton and a
simple ingrain carpet of corresponding color.

"Now, you girls have been busy lately in schemes for buying a velvet
carpet for the new parlor that is to be, and the only points that have
seemed to weigh in the council were that it was velvet, that it was
cheaper than velvets usually are, and that it was a genteel pattern."

"Now, papa," said Jenny, "what ears you have! We thought you were
reading all the time!"

"I see what you are going to say," said Marianne. "You think that we
have not once mentioned the consideration which should determine the
carpet, whether it will harmonize with our other things. But you see,
papa, we don't really know what our other things are to be."

"Yes," said Jenny, "and Aunt Easygo said it was an unusually good
chance to get a velvet carpet."

"Yet, good as the chance is, it costs just twice as much as an
ingrain."

"Yes, papa, it does."

"And you are not sure that the effect of it, after you get it down,
will be as good as a well-chosen ingrain one."

"That's true," said Marianne reflectively.

"But then, papa," said Jenny, "Aunt Easygo said she never heard of
such a bargain; only think, two dollars a yard for a _velvet_!"

"And why is it two dollars a yard? Is the man a personal friend, that
he wishes to make you a present of a dollar on the yard, or is there
some reason why it is undesirable?" said I.

"Well, you know, papa, he said those large patterns were not so
salable."

"To tell the truth," said Marianne, "I never did like the pattern
exactly; as to uniformity of tint, it might match with anything, for
there's every color of the rainbow in it."

"You see, papa, it's a gorgeous flower-pattern," said Jenny.

"Well, Marianne, how many yards of this wonderfully cheap carpet do
you want?"

"We want s