THE DOMESTIC ARTIST
"A spray of ivy that was stretching towards the window had been drawn back, and forced to wreathe itself around a picture."—p. 131.
[CHAPTER XII.]
WHY CAN'T THEY LET US ALONE?
Harry went out to his office, and Eva commenced the morning labors of a young housekeeper.
What are they? Something in their way as airy and pleasant as the light touches and arrangements which Eve gave to her bower in Paradise—gathering-up stray rose-leaves, tying up a lily that the rain has bent, looping a honeysuckle in a more graceful festoon, and meditating the while whether she shall have oranges and figs and grapes, or guavas and pineapples, for her first course at dinner.
Such, according to Father Milton, were the ornamental duties of the first wife, while her husband went out to his office in some distant part of Eden.
But Eden still exists whenever two young lovers set up housekeeping, even in prosaic New York; only our modern Eves wear jaunty little morning caps and fascinating wrappers and slippers, with coquettish butterfly bows. Eva's morning duties consisted in asking Mary what they had better have for dinner, giving here and there a peep into the pantry, re-arranging the flower vases, and flecking the dust from her pictures and statuettes with a gay and glancing brush of peacock's feathers. Sometimes the morning arrangements included quite a change; as, this particular day, when, on mature consideration, a spray of ivy that was stretching towards the window had been drawn back and forced to wreathe itself around a picture, and a spray of nasturtium, gemmed with half-opened golden buds, had been trained in its place in the window.