Elmdale, but Alice took a mighty fancy to
it. Our twin boys (Galileo and Herschel, named after the astronomers of
blessed memory!) were now three years old, and Alice insisted that they
required the pure air and the wholesome freedom of rural life. Galileo
had, in fact, never quite been himself since he swallowed the pincushion.

We did not go to Elmdale at once; we never went there. Elmdale was
simply another one of those curious phases in which our dream of a home
abounded. With the Elmdale phase "our house" underwent another change.
But this was natural enough. You see that in none of our other plans had
we contemplated the possibility of a growing family. Now we had two
uproarious boys, and their coming had naturally put us into pleasing
doubt as to what similar emergencies might transpire in the future. So
our five-room cottage had acquired (in our minds) two more rooms--seven
altogether--and numerous little changes in the plans and decorations of
"our house" had gradually been evolved.

As I now remember, it was about this time that Alice made up her mind
that the reception-room should be treated in blue. Her birth had
occurred in December, and therefore turquoise was her birth-stone and the
blue thereof was her favorite color. I am not much of a believer in such
things--in fact, I discredit all superstitions except such as involve
black cats and the rabbit's foot, and these exceptions are wholly
reasonable, for my family lived for many years in Salem, Mass. But I
have always conceded that Alice has as good a right to her superstitions
as I to mine. I bought her the prettiest turquoise ring I could afford,
and I approved her determination to treat the reception-room in blue. I
rather enjoyed the prospect of the luxury of a reception-room; it had
ground the iron into my soul that, ever since we married and settled
down, Alice and I had been compelled in winter months to entertain our
callers in the same room where we ate our meals. In summer this
humiliation did not afflict us, for then we always sat of an evening on
the front porch.

The blue room met with a curious fate. One Christmas our beneficent
friend, Colonel Mullaly, presented Alice and me with a beautiful and
valuable lamp. Alice went to Burley's the next week and priced one (not
half as handsome) and was told that it cost sixty dollars. It was a
tall, shapely lamp, with an alabaster and Italian marble pedestal
cunningly polished; a magn