at use they put it to."

"A library, I believe. I think the head carpenter told me so."

"A library! Well, then, let's _us_ have a library," she said.
"Book-cases would fill those walls very handsomely."

He looked at her for a moment, and said,

"But the books?"

"Oh, we can get those," she replied. "I'll go this very morning to
Metcalf about the book-cases."

So forthwith she ordered the carriage, and drove to the
cabinet-maker's.

"Mr. Metcalf," she said with her grandest air, (for as at present she
had to confine her grandeur to her trades-people, she gave them full
measure, for which, however, they charged her full price,) "I want new
book-cases for my library--I want your handsomest and most expensive
kind."

The man bowed civilly, and asked if she preferred the Gothic or
Egyptian pattern.

Gothic or Egyptian! Mrs. Fairchild was nonplused. What did he mean by
Gothic and Egyptian? She would have given the world to ask, but was
ashamed.

"I have not made up my mind," she replied, after some hesitation, (her
Egyptian ideas being drawn from the Bible, were not of the latest
date, and so she thought of Pharaoh) and added, "but Gothic, I
believe"--for Gothic at least was untrenched ground, and she had no
prejudices of any kind to combat there--"which, however, are the most
fashionable?" she continued.

"Why I make as many of the one as the other," he replied. "Mr.
Ashfield's are Egyptian, Mr. Campden's Gothic."

Now the Ashfields were her grand people. She did not know them, but
she meant to. They lived next door, and she thought nothing would be
easier. They were not only rich, but fashionable. He was a man of
talent and information, (but that the Fairchilds knew nothing about,)
head of half the literary institutions, a person of weight and
influence in all circles. She was very pretty and very elegant--dressing
beautifully, and looking very animated and happy; and Mrs. Fairchild
often gazed at her as she drove from the door, (for the houses
joined,) and made up her mind to be very intimate as soon as she was
"all fixed."

"The Ashfields have Egyptian," she repeated, and Pharaoh faded into
insignificance before such grand authority--and so she ordered
Egyptian too.

"Not there," said Mrs. Fairchild, "you need not measure there," as the
cabinet-maker was taking the dimensions of her rooms. "I shall have a
looking-glass there."

"A mirror in a library!" said the man of rule and inches, with a tone