of surprise that made Mrs. Fairchild color. "Did you wish a mirror
here, ma'am," he added, more respectfully.

"No, no," she replied quickly, "go on"--for she felt at once that he
had seen the inside of more libraries than she had.

Her ideas received another illumination from the upholsterer, as she
was looking at blue satin for a curtain to the one large window which
opened on a conservatory, who said,

"Oh, it's for a library window; then cloth, I presume, madam, is the
article you wish."

"Cloth!" she repeated, looking at him.

"Yes," he replied; "we always furnish libraries with cloth. Heavy,
rich materials is considered more suitable for such a purpose than
silk."

Mrs. Fairchild was schooled again. However, Mr. Ashfield was again the
model.

And now the curtains were up, and the cases home, and all but the
books there, which being somewhat essential to a library, Mrs.
Fairchild said to her husband,

"My dear, you must buy some books. I want to fill these cases and get
this room finished."

"I will," he replied. "There's an auction to-night. I'll buy a lot."

"An auction," she said, hesitatingly. "Is that the best place? I don't
think the bindings will be apt to be handsome of auction books."

"I can have them rebound," he answered.

"But you cannot tell whether they will fit these shelves," she
continued, anxiously. "I think you had better take the measure of the
shelves, and go to some book-store, and then you can choose them
accordingly."

"I see Ashfield very often at book auctions," he persisted, to which
she innocently replied,

"Oh, yes--but he knows what he is buying, we don't;" to which
unanswerable argument Mr. Fairchild had nothing to say. And so they
drove to a great book importers, and ordered the finest books and
bindings that would suit their measurements.

And now they were at last, as Mrs. Fairchild expressed it, "_all
fixed_." Mr. Fairchild had paid and dismissed the last workman--she
had home every article she could think of--and now they were to sit
down and enjoy.

The succeeding weeks passed in perfect quiet--and, it must be
confessed, profound _ennui_.

"I wish people would begin to call," said Mrs. Fairchild, with an
impatient yawn. "I wonder when they will."

"There seems to be visiting enough in the street," said Mr. Fairchild,
as he looked out at the window. "There seems no end of Ashfield's
company."

"I wish some of them would call here," she replied sorrowfu