o consult together, to make
selections, to buy new things and how delighted they both were when
they happened to think of the same things!

So the house was furnished by degrees. Workmen and upholsterers did
their best. Aunt Rosa's room alone remained untouched, and the master's
cosy room, in which they had passed their first happy weeks together.

And now everything was ready, homelike and comfortable without any
pretension. The low rooms were not suited to display costly carved
furniture, so with excellent taste they had both chosen only the
simplest things.

"By-and-by, when we build a new house, Gertrude," he said, and she
assented.

"First we will improve the estate, Frank--it is so pleasant in these
dear old rooms."

The garden-hall been fitted up as a dining-room. Close by was a
drawing-room with dark curtains and soft carpets; on the walls Uncle
Henry's wedding present, two large oil paintings--a sunny landscape and
a wintry sea-coast. From behind great green palms stood out a noble
bust of Hermes. Sofas, low seats and arm-chairs everywhere, and
wherever there was the smallest space it was filled up with a vase of
fresh flowers.

Upstairs, next to the master's room, was that of the young wife, where
her father's picture now stood behind the work-table, by the window.

The door between the two rooms stood open, and bright striped Turkish
curtains drawn back, permitted Gertrude from her place by the window,
to see the writing-table at which he was working. And from the window
might be seen the wooded mountains beyond the green garden, and farther
away still the distant Brocken, half-hidden in the clouds.

The young wife had cleared out all the cupboards; in the kitchen the
last new tin had been hung up on the hooks, and shone and sparkled in
the bright sunshine as if it were pure silver. In the store-room jars
and pots were all full and in order, as she turned the key with a happy
smile, and put it into the spick-and-span new key-basket on her arm.

"Come, Frank," she said, after he had been admiring all this splendor,
"now we will go through all the rooms again."

"There are not many of them, Gertrude," he laughed.

"Enough for us, Frank; we do not need any more."

And they went through the garden hall, and admired the stately buffet
and the hanging-lamp of polished brass, which swung over the great
dining-table. They went into the drawing-room, and admired the pictures
again which the sun lighted