elve-feet-square rooms. And it
is wonderful with what slender materials she will satisfy this hunger
of the eye for beauty and color. A few brightly polished tins, the
many-shaded patchwork coverlets and cushions, the gay stripes in the
rag carpet, the pot of trailing ivy or scarlet geranium, the shining
black stove, with its glimmer and glow of fire and heat, are made by
some subtle charm of arrangement both satisfactory and suggestive.

In spite of all arguments about the economy of "boarding," who does
not respect the men or women who, at all just sacrifices, eschew a
boarding-house and make themselves a home?

A man without a home has cast away an anchor; an atmosphere of
uncertainty clings about him; he advertises his tendency to break
loose from wholesome restraints. So strongly is the force of this home
influence now perceived that the wisest of our merchants refuse to
employ boys and women without homes, while the universal preference is
in favor of men who have assumed the head of the house, and thus given
hostage to society for their good behavior.

But a house is not a _home_ till it is swept and garnished, and
contains not only the wherewithal to refresh the body, but also
something for the comfort of the heart, the elevation of the mind, and
the delight of the eye.

If we would fairly estimate the moral power of furniture, let us
consider how attached it is possible for us to become to it. There are
chairs that are sacred objects to us: the large, easy one, in which
some saint sat patiently waiting for the angels; the little high chair
which was some darling baby's throne till he "went away one morning;"
the low rocker, in which mother nursed the whole family of stalwart
sons and lovely daughters.

Ask any practised student or writer how much he loves his old desk,
with its tidy pigeon-holes and familiar conveniences. Have they not
many a secret between them that they only understand? Are they not
familiar? Could they be parted without great sorrow and regrets?
Nothing is more certain than that we do stamp ourselves upon dead
matter, and impart to it a kind of life. Is there a more pathetic
picture than that of Dickens's study after his death? Yet no human
figure is present; there is nothing but furniture, the desk on which
he wrote those wonderful stories, and the empty chair before it.

Nothing but the empty chair and the confidential desk to speak for the
dead master; but how eloquently they do it