The articles were arranged in one small room, and when the three girls followed Mr. Ashby to the place, they were amazed at the insignificance of their exhibition.
“Why! I thought I had a lot of stuff,” declared Eleanor.
“You see all that you bought. There is your list,” laughed Mr. Ashby, sympathizing in her disillusionment.
“And I thought that chest so much more elaborate—when I chose it in France,” ventured Polly, puckering her forehead.
“I’ll tell you why,” said Mr. Ashby. “When we see these pieces on the other side, the glamour of the places and the stories connected with them, actually charm us more than the objects themselves. After we secure our desires and find we own them, we ship them home and do not see them again until they reach prosaic and business-like New York.
“Meantime, we enhance the beauty and romance of the objects we purchased, by thinking of them in connection with the romance of their past; thus idealizing them in mental pictures, they appear far finer and more alluring than in truth they are.
“When we really view them again, just as you are now doing, the shock of finding them just simple antiques, and so inferior to what we dreamed them, reverses our sentiments about them.
“Now beware, girls! Don’t let this reversal affect you, in the least. These objects are just as valuable and desirable, here, as ever they were over there. It is only your personal view-point that has changed, somewhat. You have not been visiting old collections, or museums abroad, for some weeks now; and the radical change from touring ancient Europe, to rushing about in New York in quests of homes, school, and clothes for the season, has made a corresponding change in your minds.
“In a short time, you will be back in harness and feel the same keen delight in these old possessions as aforetime.”
Polly appreciated the sense of Mr. Ashby’s little lecture, but Eleanor still felt disappointed with her purchases. And Dodo laughed outright at the old pewter she had gone wild over in England, and now scorned in America.