MY WIFE PROJECTS HOSPITALITIES.
"My dear," said my wife to me at breakfast, "our house is about done. To
be sure there are ever so many little niceties that I haven't got as
yet, but it's pretty enough now. So that I'm not at all ashamed to show
it to mamma or Aunt Maria, or any of them."
"Do you think," said I, "that last-named respectable individual could
possibly think of countenancing us, when we have only an ingrain carpet
on our parlor and nothing but mattings on the chambers, and live down
here where nobody lives?"
"Well, poor soul!" said Eva, "she'll have to accept it as one of the
trials of life, and have recourse to the consolations of religion. Then,
after all, Harry, I really am proud of our parlor. Of course, we've had
the good luck to have a good many handsome ornaments given to us; so
that, though we haven't the regulation things that people generally get,
it does look very bright and pretty."
"It's perfectly lovely," said I. "Our house to me is a perfect dream of
loveliness. I think of it all day from time to time when I'm at work in
my office, and am always wanting to come home and see it again, and have
a little curiosity to know what new thing you've accomplished. So far,
your career has been a daily succession of triumphs, and the best of it
is that it's all so much like you."
"So," said she, "that I can't be jealous at your loving the house so
much. I suppose you think it as much a part of me as the shell on a
turtle's back. Well, now, before we invite mother and Aunt Maria, and
all the folks down here, I propose that we have just a nice little
housewarming, with our own little private particular set, who know how
to appreciate us."
"Agreed!" said I; "Bolton, and Jim, and Alice, and you and I will have a
commemoration-dinner together. Our fellows, you see, seem to feel as
much interested in this house as if it were their own."
"I know it," said she. "Isn't it really amusing to see the grandfatherly
concern that Bolton has for our cooking-stove?"
"Oh! Bolton has staked his character on that stove," I said. "Its
success is quite a personal matter now."
"Well, it does bake admirably," said my wife, "and I think our dinner
will be a perfect success, so far as that is concerned. And, do you
know, I'm going to introduce that new way of doing up cold chicken which
I've invented."
"Yes," said I, "we shall christen it Chicken _à la Eva_."
"And I've been talking with our Mary about it, and she's quite in the
spirit of the affair. You see, like all Irish women, Mary perfectly
worships the boys, and thinks there never was anybody like Mr. Bolton,
and Mr. Jim; and of course it's quite a labor of love with her. Then
I've been giving her little cub there a series of lessons to enable her
to wait on table; and she is all exercised with the prospect."
"Why," said I, "the little flibberty-gibbet is hardly as high as the
table."
"Oh, never say that before her. She feels very high indeed in the world,
and is impressed with the awful gravity and responsibility of being
eight years old. I have made her a white apron with pockets, in which
her soul delights; and her mother has starched and ironed it till it
shines with whiteness. And she is learning to brush the table-cloth, and
change plates in the most charming way, and with a gravity that is quite
overcoming."
"Capital!" said I. "And when shall it be?"
"To-morrow night."
"Agreed! I'll tell the fellows this is to be a regular blow-out, and we
must do our very prettiest, which is very pretty indeed," said I,
"thanks to the contributions of our numerous friends. For my part, I
think the fashion of wedding-presents has proved a lucky thing for us."
"Even if we have six pie-knives, and no pie to eat with them," said my
wife, "as may happen in our establishment pretty often."
"Still," said I, "among them all there are a sufficiency of articles
that give quite another aspect to our prudent little house from what it
would wear if we were obliged to buy everything ourselves."
"Yes," said my wife, "and one such present as that set of bronzes on the
mantel-piece gives an air to a whole room. A mantel-piece is like a
lady's bonnet. It's the headpiece of a room, and if that be pleasing the
rest is a good deal taken for granted. Then, you see, our parlor is all
of a warm color,--crimson carpet, crimson curtains,--everything warm and
glowing. And so long as you have the color it isn't a bit of matter
whether your carpet cost three dollars and a half a yard or eighty-seven
cents, and whether your curtains are damask or Turkey red. Color is
color, and will produce its effects, no matter in what material."
"And we men," said I, "never know what the material is, if only the
effect is pleasant. I always look at a room as a painting. It never
occurs to me whether the articles in it are cheap or dear, so that only
the general effect is warm, and social, and agreeable. And that is just
what you have made these rooms. I think the general effect of the rooms,
either by daylight, or lamp-light, or firelight, would be to make a
person like to stay in them, and when he had left them want to come
back."
"Yes," said my wife, "I flatter myself our rooms have the air of
belonging to people that are having nice times, and enjoying themselves,
as we are. And, for my own part, I feel like sitting right down in them.
All that round of party-going, and calling, and visiting, that I used
to have to keep up, seems to me really wearisome. I want you to
understand, Harry, that it's not the slightest sacrifice in the world
for me to give it up. I'm just happy to be out of it."
"You see," said I, "we can sit down here and make our own world. Those
that we really like very much and who like us very much will come to us.
My ideal of good society is of a few congenial persons who can know each
other very thoroughly, so as to feel perfectly acquainted and at home
with one another. That was the secret of those reunions that went on so
many years around Madame Récamier. It made no difference whether she
lived in a palace, or a little obscure street; her friends were real
friends, and followed her everywhere. The French have made a science of
the cultivation of friendship, which is worth study."
Thus my wife and I chatted, and felicitated each other, in those first
happy home making days. There was never any end to our subjects of
mutual conversation. Every little change in our arrangements was
fruitful in conversation. We hung our pictures here at first, and liked
them well, but our maturer second-thoughts received bright inspirations
to take them down and hang them there; and then we liked them better. I
must say, by the by, that I had committed one of those extravagances
which lovers do commit when they shut their eyes and go it blind. I had
bought back the pictures of Eva's little boudoir from Goupil's. The fact
was that there was a considerable sympathy felt for Mr. Van Arsdel, and
one of the members of the concern was a nice fellow, with whom I had
some pleasant personal acquaintance. So that the redemption of the
pictures was placed at a figure which made it possible for me to
accomplish it. And the pictures themselves were an untold store of
blessedness to us. I believe we took them all down and hung them over
four times, on four successive days, before we were satisfied that we
had come to ultimate perfection.