“Well the house will not run away.”
“But somebody is sure to snap it up. It is a Bijou.” She was disappointed, and half inclined to pout. But she vented her feelings in a letter to her beloved Florry, and appeared at dinner as sweet as usual.
During dinner a note came from the agent, accepting Dr. Staine's offer. He glozed the matter thus: he had persuaded the owner it was better to take a good tenant at a moderate loss, than to let the Bijou be uninhabited during the present rainy season. An assignment of the lease—which contained the usual covenants—would be prepared immediately, and Dr. Staines could have possession in forty-eight hours, by paying the premium.
Rosa was delighted, and as soon as dinner was over, and the waiters gone, she came and kissed Christopher.
He smiled, and said, “Well, you are pleased; that is the principal thing. I have saved two hundred pounds, and that is something. It will go towards furnishing.”
“La! yes,” said Rosa, “I forgot. We shall have to get furniture now. How nice!” It was a pleasure the man of forecast could have willingly dispensed with; but he smiled at her, and they discussed furniture, and Christopher, whose retentive memory had picked up a little of everything, said there were wholesale upholsterers in the City who sold cheaper than the West-end houses, and he thought the best way was to measure the rooms in the Bijou, and go to the city with a clear idea of what they wanted; ask the prices of various necessary articles, and then make a list, and demand a discount of fifteen per cent on the whole order, being so considerable, and paid for in cash.
Rosa acquiesced, and told Christopher he was the cleverest man in England.
About nine o'clock Mrs. Cole came in to condole with her friend, and heard the good news. When Rosa told her how they thought of furnishing, she said, “Oh no, you must not do that; you will pay double for everything. That is the mistake Johnnie and I made; and after that a friend of mine took me to the auction-rooms, and I saw everything sold—oh, such bargains; half, and less than half, their value. She has furnished her house almost entirely from sales, and she has the loveliest things in the world—such ducks of tables, and jardinieres, and things; and beautiful rare china—her house swarms with it—for an old song. A sale is the place. And then so amusing.”
“Yes, but,” said Christopher, “I should not like my wife to encounter a public room.”
“Not alone, of course; but with me. La! Dr. Staines, they are too full of buying and selling to trouble their heads about us.”