"But what a surprise when he finds out who the purchaser is!"
"That he shall never find out till we are married, not if it's a dozen years first. Well, we went next and looked at Mr. Macer's picture. I verily believe that Clement was far better pleased that his friend's work should have found a purchaser than that his own had. Anyhow, he was in such high spirits that when we left the Academy he insisted on our having a hansom and going to look at two empty houses that he had seen advertised in one of the newspapers. One of the houses was at Haverstock Hill, the other at Camden Town suburbs of London, both of them, hitherto known to me only by name.
"The rent of both houses was the same--sixty pounds a year. I told Clement that I thought we could do with a house at a much less rent than that, and begged of him not to go beyond his means."
"Gracious me, Cecilia, how could you?"
"Oh, it was great fun. After seeing the houses we drove to a furniture emporium, and there, after due deliberation, I chose a pattern for our drawing-room suite: a pale-blue figured silk, with a narrow black stripe running through it, my dear Mora, and the price twenty-five guineas."
"How could you let Mr. Fildew go to such an expense?"
"Shall I not make it up to him a thousandfold one of these days? The day before yesterday we bought a lot more things--carpets, china, what not. I can't tell you how delightful it is to go about in this way, and not finally fix on anything till you feel sure that you can really afford it. Poor people must value their homes far more than rich people can. They have had to work and think and contrive, and get their things together an article or two at a time, as they could spare the money. We well-to-do people give carte blanche to a firm, and our mansion is fitted up from garret to basement almost without our having a voice in the matter. In many ways it is better to be poor than rich, and this is one of them."
"What a pity it is, my dear Cis, that Providence did not make you a governess at sixty guineas a year, or a curate's wife at a hundred and fifty."
"In either case I should have led a much more useful existence than I do now. Which reminds me that as I was parting from Clement last evening he put a sealed envelope into my hands, with a request that I would not open it till I was alone. You would never guess what was inside: a twenty-pound note towards my wedding outfit."
"Oh, Cecilia!"