blessed luminary was allowed there only
at rare intervals when my wife and daughters were out shopping, and I
acted out my uncivilized male instincts by pulling up every shade and
vivifying the apartment as in days of old.

But this was not the worst of it. The new furniture and new carpet
formed an opposition party in the room. I believe in my heart that for
every little household fairy that went out with the dear old things
there came in a tribe of discontented brownies with the new ones. These
little wretches were always twitching at the gowns of my wife and
daughters, jogging their elbows, and suggesting odious comparisons
between the smart new articles and what remained of the old ones. They
disparaged my writing-table in the corner; they disparaged the
old-fashioned lounge in the other corner, which had been the maternal
throne for years; they disparaged the work-table, the work-basket, with
constant suggestions of how such things as these would look in certain
well-kept parlors where new-fashioned furniture of the same sort as ours
existed.

"We don't have any parlor," said Jane, one day. "Our parlor has always
been a sort of log-cabin,--library, study, nursery, greenhouse, all
combined. We never have had things like other people."

"Yes, and this open fire makes such a dust; and this carpet is one that
shows every speck of dust; it keeps one always on the watch."

"I wonder why papa never had a study to himself; I'm sure I should think
he would like it better than sitting here among us all. Now there's the
great south-room off the dining-room; if he would only move his things
there, and have his open fire, we could then close up the fireplace, and
put lounges in the recesses, and mamma could have her things in the
nursery,--and then we should have a parlor fit to be seen."

I overheard all this, though I pretended not to,--the little busy chits
supposing me entirely buried in the recesses of a German book over which
I was poring.

There are certain crises in a man's life when the female element in his
household asserts itself in dominant forms that seem to threaten to
overwhelm him. The fair creatures, who in most matters have depended on
his judgment, evidently look upon him at these seasons as only a
forlorn, incapable male creature, to be cajoled and flattered and
persuaded out his native blindness and absurdity into the fairy-land of
their wishes.

"Of course, mamma," said the busy voices, "men can'