the sky; and though, when it went, the gloom shut
drearily down again, still it bore the promise of fair day to-morrow.

* * * * *

HOUSE AND HOME PAPERS.

BY CHRISTOPHER CROWFIELD.

I.

THE RAVAGES OF A CARPET.

"My dear, it's so cheap!"

These words were spoken by my wife, as she sat gracefully on a roll of
Brussels carpet which was spread out in flowery lengths on the floor of
Messrs. Ketchem & Co.

"It's _so_ cheap!"

Milton says that the love of praise is the last infirmity of noble
minds. I think he had not rightly considered the subject. I believe that
last infirmity is the love of getting things cheap! Understand me, now.
I don't mean the love of getting cheap things, by which one understands
showy, trashy, ill-made, spurious articles, bearing certain apparent
resemblances to better things. All really sensible people are quite
superior to that sort of cheapness. But those fortunate accidents which
put within the power of a man things really good and valuable for half
or a third of their value what mortal virtue and resolution can
withstand? My friend Brown has a genuine Murillo, the joy of his heart
and the light of his eyes, but he never fails to tell you, as its
crowning merit, how he bought it in South America for just nothing,--how
it hung smoky and deserted in the back of a counting-room, and was
thrown in as a makeweight to bind a bargain, and, upon being cleaned,
turned out a genuine Murillo; and then he takes out his cigar, and calls
your attention to the points in it; he adjusts the curtain to let the
sunlight fall just in the right spot; he takes you to this and the other
point of view; and all this time you must confess, that, in your mind as
well as his, the consideration that he got all this beauty for ten
dollars adds lustre to the painting. Brown has paintings there for which
he paid his thousands, and, being well advised, they are worth the
thousands he paid; but this ewe-lamb that he got for nothing always
gives him a secret exaltation in his own eyes. He seems to have credited
to himself personally merit to the amount of what he should have paid
for the picture. Then there is Mrs. Croesus, at the party yesterday
evening, expatiating to my wife on the surprising cheapness of her
point-lace set,--"Got for just nothing at all, my dear!" and a circle of
admiring listeners echoes the sound. "Did you ever _hear_ anything like
it? I never heard of such a