than we should like; but Mrs. Makely is too well up-to-date, as she would
say, to have much of the bric-a-brac about which she tells me used to
clutter people's houses here. There are some pretty good pictures on the
walls, and a few vases and bronzes, and she says she has produced a
greater effect of space by quelling the furniture--she means, having few
pieces and having them as small as possible. There is a little stand with
her afternoon tea-set in one corner, and there is a pretty writing-desk
in the library; I remember a sofa and some easy-chairs, but not too
many of them. She has a table near one of the windows, with books and
papers on it. She tells me that she sees herself that the place is kept
just as she wishes it, for she has rather a passion for neatness,
and you never can trust servants not to stand the books on their heads or
study a vulgar symmetry in the arrangements. She never allows them in
there, she says, except when they are at work under her eye; and she
never allows anybody there except her guests, and her husband after he
has smoked. Of course, her dog must be there; and one evening after her
husband fell asleep in the arm-chair near her, the dog fell asleep on
the fleece at her feet, and we heard them softly breathing in unison.
She made a pretty little mocking mouth when the sound first became
audible, and said that she ought really to have sent Mr. Makely out with
the dog, for the dog ought to have the air every day, and she had
been kept indoors; but sometimes Mr. Makely came home from business so
tired that she hated to send him out, even for the dog's sake, though he
was so apt to become dyspeptic. "They won't let you have dogs in some of
the apartment-houses, but I tore up the first lease that had that clause
in it, and I told Mr. Makely that I would rather live in a house all my
days than any flat where my dog wasn't as welcome as I was. Of course,
they're rather troublesome."

The Makelys had no children, but it is seldom that the occupants of