Plain, but not sordid--though not splendid, clean.
Lydia was an expert housekeeper. "I love a little house that I can clean all over," said she. She would have liked a Roman villa made of polished marble, that could be scrubbed from top to bottom, or a house of the melted and dyed cobble-stones that some genius has promised to give us. Her china-closet was a picture, with platters in rows and cups hanging on little brass hooks under the shelves. Our whole house was exquisite, and became quite renowned for its elegance and charm. Lydia's exuberant vitality was attractive: her relations and friends liked to come there. Some of our friends were of the high, haughty, tone-y sort, which would have been well enough if we had not incurred debts in our housekeeping.
What and how great the merit and the art To live on little with a thankful heart!
Lydia's rich uncle, Nathan Stene, gave us a bookcase that caused my heart to sink with an appalling premonition at its first appearance, it was so huge and high. How we got it into our parlor without cutting off the top and bottom words cannot explain. That bookcase was my first step toward ruin. I had a good many books--not of scientific but of delightful literature, the best works of the best authors--and my books were as shabby as Charles Lamb's library. There never were such dilapidated volumes as my De Quinceys. Lydia had _Young Mrs. Jardine_ and lots of other
Stickjaw pudding that tires the chin, With the marmalade spread ever so thin;
and her books were new-looking. She said mine looked disgustingly dirty in our new bookcase, so I had them rebound; and this was my next step toward ruin. Lydia wanted a long peacock-feather duster to dust the top of the bookcase. I bought that. Our only long tablecloth was a damask, engarlanded and diapered and resplendent with a colored border warranted to wash. I had to buy napkins to go with it. I bought a butter-knife to match a solid silver butter-dish, and a set of individual salt-spoons to match salt-cellars, and nut-picks and crackers to match something else. Moreover, there was a magnificent opera-glass that required to be matched with theatre-going--_not_ as I was wont to go, in an old overcoat having its pockets stuffed with old playbills. But why enumerate?