One may think this a very simple matter, but whoever knows all the resistance which the forces of matter and the laws of gravitation make to the simplest improvement in one's parlor, will know better.
It required a scaffolding made of a chair and an ottoman to reach the top of the pictures, and a tack-hammer and little tacks. Then the precise air of arrangement and exact position had to be studied from below, after the tacks were driven, and that necessitated two or three descents from the perch to review, and the tumbling of the ottoman to the floor, and the calling of Mary in to help, and to hold the ottoman firm while the persevering little artist finished her work. It is by ups and downs like these, by daily labor of modern Eves, each in their little paradises, O ye Adams! that your houses have that "just right" look that makes you think of them all day, and long to come back to them at night.
"Somehow or other," you say, "I don't know how it is, my wife's things have a certain air; her vines grow just as they ought to, her flowers blossom in just the right places, and her parlors always look pleasant." You don't know how many periods of grave consideration, how many climbings on chairs and ottomans, how many doings and undoings and shiftings and changes produce the appearance that charms you. Most people think that flower vases are very simple affairs; but the keeping of parlors dressed with flowers is daily work for an hour or two for any woman. Nor is it work in vain. No altar is holier than the home altar, and the flowers that adorn it are sacred.
Eva was sitting, a little tired with her strenuous exertions, contemplating her finished arrangement with satisfaction, when the door-bell rang, and Alice came in.
"Why, Allie, dear, how nice of you to be down here so early! I was just wanting somebody to show my changes to. Look there. See how I've looped that ivy round mother's picture; isn't it sweet?" and Eva caressingly arranged a leaf or two to suit her.
"Charming!" said Alice, but with rather an abstracted, preoccupied tone.
"And look at this nasturtium; it's full of buds. See, the yellow is beginning to show. I've fastened it in a wreath around the window, so that the sun will shine through the blossoms."
"It's beautiful," said Alice, still absently and nervously playing with her bonnet strings.
"Why, darling, what's the matter?" said Eva, suddenly noticing signs of some unusual feeling. "What ails you?"