My only revenge, a miserable one forsooth, was that
she resembled a skeleton three months later; a pale, pitiful bag of
bones, though proud and radiant withal. Had it not been for that
prediction that her life was to be lengthened, I should have felt
anxious. What a marvellous creation a woman is, to be sure! Man and
philosopher as I am, my impulse would have been to consign the contents
of the garret to the auctioneer or the ash-man, and to retain most of
the least-used furniture and upholstery to eke out our new splendor.
But Josephine's method was distinctly opposite. She was critical of
nearly everything respectable-looking in the old house; on the other
hand, there was scarcely anything in the attic or lumber-room, where
our useless things were stored, which did not turn out to be a treasure
and just the thing for the new establishment. To begin with, there was
a love of a set of andirons and a brass fender (to reproduce
Josephine's description exactly), which had been discarded at the time
we began housekeeping as too old-fashioned and peculiar. Of equal
import was a disreputable-looking mahogany desk with brass handles and
claw feet which had belonged to my great-grandmother before it was
banished to the garret within a month after our wedding ceremony, on
the plea that none of the drawers would work.
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