"I wouldn't ask any thing more comfortable or genteel than this,"
said, I, when the parlors were all "fixed" right.

Mrs. Jones looked pleased with the appearance of things, but did not
express herself extravagantly.

In selecting our chamber furniture, a handsome dressing-bureau and
French bedstead that my wife went to look at in the ware-room of a
high-priced cabinet maker, tempted her strongly, and it was with
some difficulty that I could get her ideas back to a regular maple
four-poster, a plain, ten dollar bureau, and a two dollar
dressing-glass. Twenty and thirty dollar mattresses, too, were in
her mind, but when articles of the kind, just as good to wear, could
be had at eight and ten dollars, where was the use of wasting money
in going higher?

The ratio of cost set down against the foregoing articles, was
maintained from garret to kitchen; and I was agreeably disappointed
to find, after the last bill for purchases was paid, that I was
within the limit of expenditures I had proposed to make by over a
hundred dollars.

The change from a boarding-house to a comfortable home was, indeed,
pleasant. We could never get done talking about it. Every thing was
so quiet, so new, so clean, and so orderly.

"This is living," would drop from our lips a dozen times a week.

One day, about three months after we had commenced housekeeping, I
came home, and, on entering the parlor, the first thing that met my