besides one easy-chair, covered with old-gold plush--also an
extravagance. There was a really beautiful old mahogany table with
carved base, of which neither Henry nor Sylvia thought much. Sylvia
meditated selling enough Calkin's soap to buy a new one, and stow
that away in Mr. Allen's room. Mr. Allen professed great admiration
for it, to her wonderment. There was also a fine, old, gold-framed
mirror, and some china vases on the mantel-shelf. Sylvia was rather
ashamed of them. Mrs. Jim Jones had a mirror which she had earned by
selling Calkin's soap, which Sylvia considered much handsomer. She
would have had ambitions in that direction also, but Henry was firm
in his resolve not to have the mirror displaced, nor the vases,
although Sylvia descanted upon the superior merits of some vases with
gilded pedestals which Mrs. Sam Elliot had in her parlor.

Meeks regarded the superb old table with appreciation as he sat in
the sitting-room after supper. "Fine old piece," he said.

Henry looked at it doubtfully. It had been in a woodshed of his
grandfather's house, when he was a boy, and he was not as confident
about that as he was about the mirror and vases, which had always
maintained their parlor estate.

"Sylvia don't think much of it," he said. "She's crazy to have one of
carved oak like one Mrs. Jim Jones has."

"Carved oak fiddlestick!" said Sidney Meeks. "It's a queer thing that
so much virtue and real fineness of character can exist in a woman
without the slightest trace of taste for art."

Henry looked resentful. "Sylvia has taste, as much taste as most