Clara smiled. "If only," said she, "we had some superfluous furniture, any brass pans or copper kettles."
"Ah! if only we were millionaires!" interrupted Henry gaily; "then we could get wood in abundance, and perhaps," he added, looking slyly over to the stove where some bread-soup was in preparation for their very temperate repast, "some better fare for dinner. But," he continued in a tone of humorous banter, which he frequently adopted, and pushing back his chair a few paces as he spoke, "while you superintend the household concerns, and give the necessary orders to the cook, I will withdraw into my study. Now, what would I not write if only pen, paper, and ink, were to be got at; and how studiously would I read if but a book could be procured."
"You must think, dearest," said Clara waggishly; "the stock of thoughts, it is to be hoped, is not quite so low as our wood."
"Dearest wife," he replied, "the cares of our establishment demand all your attention; let me proceed undisturbed with my studies. I will read," he continued, speaking as if to himself, "the journal I formerly kept in our palmy days of stationery. And it strikes me that it would be particularly profitable to study it backwards; to begin at the end, and so lay a proper foundation for a full comprehension of the beginning. All true wisdom goes in a circle, and is typified by a serpent biting at its own tail. We will begin this time at the tail."
Opening his journal at the last page, he began to read in the same subdued tone—"They tell a tale of a raving criminal, who, being condemned to death by starvation, ate himself gradually up. This is, in fact, the story of life, and of all of us. In some there remains nothing but the stomach and the mouth. With us there is left the soul, which is expressly said to be inconsumable. So far as externals are concerned, I have certainly flayed and devoured myself. That I should, up to this day, have retained a certain dress-coat—I, who never go out—was perfectly ridiculous. Mem.—Next birthday of my wife to appear before her in a waist-coat and shirt sleeves, as it would be highly indecorous to present myself to a person of her rank in a frock-coat somewhat overworn."
Here he came to the end both of the page and the book. Turning back, he commenced at the page immediately preceding—"One can live very well without napkins. And now I think of it, what are these miserable napkins but a niggardly expedient for saving the table-cloth? Nay, what is this table-cloth itself but a base economy for sparing the table! I pronounce them both to be mere superfluities; both shall be sold, that we may eat off the table in the manner of the patriarchs. We will live in the fashion of our magnanimous ancestors. It is in no cynical, Diogenes-humour that I banish them from the house, but from a resolution not to follow the example of this poor-spirited age, which encumbers itself with extravagant superfluities out of a sordid economy."
"Exactly so," said Clara laughing. "Meanwhile, on the proceeds of those and other superfluities, I invite you to a repast which, at all events, shall not savour of extravagance."
So saying, they sat down to their bread-soup. He who had seen them, whatever he might have thought of the dinner, would have envied those who partook of it, so cheerful were they, so joyful, so full of freaks and frolics, over their simple provender. When the bread-soup was dispatched, Clara slyly brought from the stove a covered plate, and set before her astonished husband—a reserve of potatoes! "Long live thou second Sir Walter Raleigh!" cried Henry. Whereupon they drank to each other out of the pure element, and hob-nobbed with such glee, that Clara looked anxiously the next moment at the glasses, to see that they had not cracked them in their enthusiasm.
The dinner concluded, they drew their chairs, by way of variety, up to the solitary window of their apartment, and amused themselves with looking at the fantastic filigree work with which the frost had decorated the inside of the glass.
"My aunt used to maintain," said Clara, "that the room was warmer with this ice on the window than when the glass was clear."