"I reckon it's mighty poor taste on my part to want new furniture in
place o' that old mahogany. All the time I was showin' 'em around, the
lady and her daughter kept sayin': 'How artistic!' 'What classic lines!'
and I reckon the reason they looked at me so curious when I said I'd
rather have this golden oak, was that they was pityin' me for not
knowin' what's 'artistic.' Now, I may not be artistic, Maria, but I've
got a taste of my own, and what's the use in havin' a taste of your own
unless you use it? I might jest as well try to use somebody else's eyes
as to use somebody else's taste. That old mahogany pleased my
grandmother's taste and my mother's taste, but it don't please mine; and
I'm no more bound to use my grandmother's old furniture than I am to
wear my grandmother's old clothes.

"Don't go, Maria. Sit down a minute longer, for I haven't told you the
best part of the story yet. After the lady had said good-by and was out
of the door, she turned back, and says she: 'Miss Mayfield, when I get
the furniture in order, I'm going to send my carriage for you, and you
must come over and see if you can recognize your old friends in their
new dress and their new home.' I never believed she was goin' to send
_her_ carriage for _me_, Maria, but she did. And she took me all over
the house, and they've made it over the same as you'd make over an old
dress; and it ain't a house any longer, it's a palace. Don't ask me to
tell you how it looks, for I can't. I've always wondered what sort of
places kings and queens lived in, and now I know. There wasn't a room
that didn't have some of my old mahogany in it, but at first I couldn't
believe it was the same furniture I'd sold the lady. She'd had all the
varnish scraped off, and it was as soft and shiny-lookin' as satin, even
that little, old black cradle, and the lady said that when the furniture
man began to scrape that, he found it was solid rosewood. We went into
the library, and there was Grandfather's old secretary, lookin' so fine
and grand, Maria, it took my breath clean away. There wasn't a dent or a
scratch on it, and it shone in the light jest like a piece of polished
silver, and the prettiest curtains you ever saw fallin' on each side of
it. It looked exactly like it belonged in that room. And it does belong
there. Why, as I was standin' there lookin' at it, I thought if that old
secretary could speak, it would say: 'I've found my place at last.' And
it come over me