places; no two pieces of furniture were even remotely related
to one another in style or age. The wall-paper hung here and there in
strips; the windows were dim with dirt; dust lay thickly in every
corner; a counterpane of dubious complexion had a dark, wide-spreading
stain in the centre.

It is true, I admit, that the place reeked with stale cigar smoke, and
that the infirm table propped for security against the wall, groaned
under a collection of juvenile "properties," the heterogeneity of
which, defies my pen and memory. But, bestow a wild boy in such
lodgings as he might find in a low tavern, and he will treat them
accordingly. He is more observant than his mother imagines, and more
sensitive than his sisters would believe. Too proud to betray the
sense of humiliation engendered by appointments unsuited to his
station and education, he proceeds to be "comfortable" and "jolly" in
his own way.

To return to our own Boy--who, my heart misgives me, lifted up his voice
and wept sore last night upon discovering that the hard-won beans and
scarlet-speckled apples were left behind--his loving mother has hung his
nursery walls with good engravings and artistically-colored pictures, in
the conviction that a child's taste for art is formed early and for
long. Heaven grant that she may keep true to this principle in all
matters pertaining to his upbringing, and in judicious dependence upon
the influence of external impressions upon the immature mind of her
offspring!

Is our bigger boy, then, so rooted and grounded in right tastes and
right feeling as to be proof against the atmosphere of the
worst-located and worst-furnished room covered by his father's roof?
How far will the mother's assertion that he is the apple of her eye
and dearest earthly possession go, when balanced against the
object-lesson of quarters which are the household hospital of
incurables, in the line of beds, tables, stools and candlesticks? If
his sister's room is adorned with exquisite etchings and choice
paintings, while his is the refuge for chromos that have had their
day--will he not draw his own inferences? If his mother never climbs
to the sky-parlor to see that the careless housemaid does her duty in
sweeping, dusting and picking-up, does not he divine why his chamber
is systematically neglected?

Many a shrewd fellow has marked the progress of an ageing or shabby
article of furniture, from the guest-chamber, through the family rooms
upward,