MRS. WARNER AND JESSY.
“Oh,” she exclaimed, “what a lovely place! How delightful it would be to live here! How proud one would be if it were one’s own!”
“It is pretty enough on the outside,” said Mrs. Warner, rather drily; “but with houses, as with those who live in them, it is not sufficient to look only at the face—we must examine further before we decide whether they are subjects either for pride or for admiration.”
They entered the pretty porch, and Mrs. Warner pulled the bell-handle. It was broken, and came off in her hand; so, seeing that the door was open, the lady walked into the house.
Strangely different from what the exterior had led her to expect, Jessy found the inside of the dwelling. It bore every token of neglect and disrepair, as if either uninhabited or occupied by those who paid no attention to neatness and comfort. The plaster had partly peeled from the walls; there was not a carpet upon the floors, and the dust lay so thick upon them that the visitors’ footsteps left prints behind! There was a sad lack of chairs and tables, even of the commonest kind, in the sitting-room, which Mrs. Warner entered in hopes of finding a more efficient bell. Jessy sat down on a bench, and had a narrow escape of falling to the ground, for one of the legs gave way beneath even her light weight!
“What a shame to furnish such a pretty house so badly!” she exclaimed. “I never saw a place so neglected! Just look at the dull spotted picture-frames, and the dirty cobwebs across the corners of the room! What is the use of having a beautiful house, if nothing but rubbish is in it?”
“What is the use, indeed!” replied Mrs. Warner, trying again the effect of pulling the old bell-rope. “But houses are not the only things which need furnishing; and yet I fancy that there is some one not far from me who occasionally acts as though she thought that it matters not how empty a head may be, so that it looks well to the eye.”
“Oh, mamma!” cried Jessy laughing, yet half vexed, “heads and houses are such different things!”
“To my idea,” replied Mrs. Warner, “an unfurnished mind is much like an unfurnished house, only a much sadder object. Youth is the time above all other to fit up the intellect richly. We may then lay in an almost boundless store of valuable information, increasing with every day of our lives, for none are too old to learn.”