"I don't know," he replied, "it's just like Ashfield's house next door, and so I supposed it must be right, and I told the workmen to follow the same plan as his."
"Ashfield's!" said Mrs. Fairchild, looking up with a new idea, "I wonder what use they put it to."
"A library, I believe. I think the head carpenter told me so."
"A library! Well, then, let's _us_ have a library," she said. "Book-cases would fill those walls very handsomely."
"Oh, we can get those," she replied. "I'll go this very morning to Metcalf about the book-cases."
So forthwith she ordered the carriage, and drove to the cabinet-maker's.
"Mr. Metcalf," she said with her grandest air, (for as at present she had to confine her grandeur to her trades-people, she gave them full measure, for which, however, they charged her full price,) "I want new book-cases for my library--I want your handsomest and most expensive kind."
The man bowed civilly, and asked if she preferred the Gothic or Egyptian pattern.
Gothic or Egyptian! Mrs. Fairchild was nonplused. What did he mean by Gothic and Egyptian? She would have given the world to ask, but was ashamed.
"I have not made up my mind," she replied, after some hesitation, (her Egyptian ideas being drawn from the Bible, were not of the latest date, and so she thought of Pharaoh) and added, "but Gothic, I believe"--for Gothic at least was untrenched ground, and she had no prejudices of any kind to combat there--"which, however, are the most fashionable?" she continued.
"Why I make as many of the one as the other," he replied. "Mr. Ashfield's are Egyptian, Mr. Campden's Gothic."
Now the Ashfields were her grand people. She did not know them, but she meant to. They lived next door, and she thought nothing would be easier. They were not only rich, but fashionable. He was a man of talent and information, (but that the Fairchilds knew nothing about,) head of half the literary institutions, a person of weight and influence in all circles. She was very pretty and very elegant--dressing beautifully, and looking very animated and happy; and Mrs. Fairchild often gazed at her as she drove from the door, (for the houses joined,) and made up her mind to be very intimate as soon as she was "all fixed."