"Haven't I?" said father. "Dear me, yes, a whole new suit. It isn't made up yet, but it soon will be. And I've got a brand new sofa for the parlour, and a clock for the mantel-shelf,—cheap enough, but Trowgood says it'll go like a twenty-guinea clock. Oh, we'll have things smart now, and no mistake. Anything else you want me to get, Sue?"
"I'd like a new cap," mother said. "I saw a beauty to-day, in Trowgood's window, all over pink bows. And I do want a new bonnet for Sundays. I'm sure I should go to Church ever so much more regular, if I had a decent bonnet to show myself in. Mine's got washed strings, and the flowers are all faded. And wouldn't it be nice if we were to get a new carpet for the parlour, and put up the old one in a bedroom? The pattern's all trodden out, and it never was anything but a dingy fright. I should like something nice and bright,—like Mrs. Raikes' carpet. I don't see why she's to have a prettier carpet than us, now we've got five thousand pounds."
"We haven't got it yet, Sue," says grannie.
"Well, we're going to have it," mother answered. "And we may just as well get the carpet. I don't see why we should wait."
"Nor I neither," father said.
"I do," said grannie, looking at them. "Miles, if you take my advice, you'll do nothing in a hurry."
But father was in no mood for waiting, nor mother either. The new carpet was chosen, and a grand one we children thought it, for there were huge bunches of red and purple flowers and green leaves, on a sort of yellowish ground. The old carpet, which had lasted nearly all through grannie's married life until now, was a real Brussels, and it had only a small brown pattern with a little red in it. The new was not a Brussels, but only a cheap sort of tapestry, which Mr. Trowgood said would wear "next door to a Brussels." And the bunches of flowers were so big, that only four whole ones could get into our little bit of a parlour. And the odd part of the matter was, that the room seemed all at once to have grown much smaller. I didn't know why then, though I am sure now that it was because the pattern was too large for the size of the room. Small-patterned carpets and papers always make a room seem bigger. When I asked grannie how she liked it, she only said: "I love the dear old carpet, Phœbe. No new one can ever be what the old one was to me."
Four new chairs with stuffed blue seats and yellow buttons were bought at the same time; and they did smarten up the room wonderfully, there's no denying. The new sofa was blue too, only it did not quite match the chairs. And the clock looked grand on the mantel-shelf, for it had a lot of gilt about it. It went all right for two days, and then it stopped, and wouldn't go any longer. But when father spoke about it, Trowgood said it must have been wrongly wound up, and father was so afraid of vexing him that he didn't complain any more.
Mother got herself the new cap, and a fine new bonnet too, and she spent a good deal of time before the looking-glass, trying them on. And the only thing grannie said about it all to me was: "They must learn, Phœbe. People have to learn by experience. You and I can't help it. Maybe all will come right in the end. But if you want to please me, my dear, you'll not wear the coral necklace yet awhile."
"No, I won't, grannie," I said. "I'll wait till you put on your new gown."