"Please don't joke, but listen; for this is the new idea. Take my dear old relics and furnish our nest with them! What could be more economical, picturesque, and appropriate for this centennial year?"
Dolly stopped short to see how this amazing proposal struck her lord and master. It seemed to take him off his legs; for he sat suddenly down upon a seat that fortunately was behind him, and looked up at the beaming little woman with an expression of admiration and contentment, which answered her question so emphatically that she nestled down beside him with all her doubts laid at rest.
"I thought you'd like it! Now let's plan it all out, and see what we've got. Every thing is as old as the hills, you know; but still so good and strong we can get years of wear out of it. We don't have such well-made furniture nowadays," she went on, happily blind to the deficiencies of the time-worn chairs, clumsy tables, and cracked china, which were all her store.
"My blessing on every stick of it! I wasn't thinking about the furniture, though. I was rejoicing over the fact that, if I needn't save up for that sort of thing, we could be married all the sooner. That's the beauty of the idea, don't you see?" and John regarded the originator thereof with unmitigated satisfaction.
"So we can; but do think about the furniture, because you ought to be interested in helping me make an artistic home," said Dolly, knowing that the word "artistic" would arrest his attention, and keep him to the subject in hand; for as yet the other idea was too new to bear much discussion.
"I will. In fact, I see it now, all complete. Two or three rooms in an old house, if possible,—they are always the cheapest, my love; so don't look as if you saw cobwebs and blue mould, and felt black beetles running over your feet. In one room we'll have that spider-legged table on which you cleaned the snuffer tray, and the claw-footed chairs: there were three, I think,—one for each of us, and the third for a friend. Then on the dresser we'll put all the porringers out of which we are to eat mush and milk, and the pewter platters for an occasional 'biled dish,'—that's the proper name for the mess, isn't it? Likewise the dear fat tea-pots, the red china cups, all cracked, the green-handled knives and forks, the wooden spoons, funny pepper-pots, and all the rest of the droll rattletraps."
"Don't forget the tankard," cried Dolly, as John paused for breath in the middle of his rhapsody.
"That will be in our parlor, set forth in state on the little stand I used to have my lunch at during the fair. I'm afraid I scratched your initials all over it, that being a trick of mine about that time."
"I thought you did it! Never mind, but go on, please."
"We shall put flowers in the immortal mug, and I shall paint them, earn sums, and grow famous, such will be the inspiration of my surroundings. For, while I sit in the General's chair at my delightful work, you in the pretty chintz gown and the fly-away cap,—promise me to wear it, or I won't go on?"