CONTENTS. PAGE II. VI. CHAPTER I. MY SPECULATION IN CHINA WARE... SOMETHING ABOUT COOKS........ 9 21 29 37 45 LIVING AT A CONVENIENT DISTANCE.. VII. THE PICKED-UP DINNER.................... 54 69 77 XXII. A PEEVISH DAY AND ITS CONSEQUENCES......... 187 CHEAP FURNITURE......................................... A CONVENIENT DISTANCE FROM THE CITY.......... 38 55 “I WONDER WHO IT IS FROM. MRS. SMITH GETS A GREAT MANY "IF ANY THING IS SENT HOME, LAY IT CAREFULLY ON MY BED"...... 163 MOTHS IN MY AUCTION SOFA........................................................................................................................... 178 (vi) CONFESSIONS OF A HOUSEKEEPER. CHAPTER I. MY SPECULATION IN CHINA WARE. THIS happened a very few years after my marriage, and is one of those feeling incidents in life that we never forget. My husband's income was moderate, and we found it necessary to deny ourselves many little articles of ornament and luxury, to the end that there might be no serious abatement in the comforts of life. In furnishing our house, we had been obliged to content ourselves mainly with things useful. Our parlor could boast of nine cane-seat chairs; one high-backed cane-seat rocking chair; a pair of card tables; a pair of ottomans, the covers for which I had worked in worsted; and a few illustrated books upon the card tables. There were no pictures on the walls, nor ornaments on the mantle pieces. For a time after my marriage with Mr. Smith, I did not think much about the plainness of our style of living; but after a while, contrasts between my own parlors and those of one or two friends, would take place in my mind; and I |