Connecticut western news., 1879-01-15
Fixing up the House.

Fixing up the House.
 To make home beautiful is duty. Mrs. Smithers had always felt it to be so. She had, therefore, knit tidies, em- broidered lamp rugs, worked paper racks and table-cloths, and filled the house with little womanly nick-nacks. Her husband, Mir. Smithers, was a solid, respectable man who had made money in trade, and could afford to spend it. He had no great artistic taste, and scarce ly ever opened any book, except perhaps the Bible of Sunday afternoon. It was an old habit his mother had taught him, and he generally got half through the psalm he selected before he got asleep. He could not have told you the differ ence between the masterpiece of one of the greatest artists and an auction sspot- boiler" :" but he had, from dealing in goods long while, acquired certain appreciation of color in upholstery and carpets, and he liked to see things hand same about him. The house was full of soft, well-stuffed, puffy chairs and sofas. with comfortable low seats there were beds into which ne1ank as into downy paradise g splendid steam-heater kept up summer-like temperature all win ter. The dining-room table, with it's big claw feet. was hospitality personi6ed :; the slde-board, with curly carvings, held nice, round, silver water pitchers, tea pots and jugs. On the mantel-pieces were the orthodox clocks, vases and bronzes. There were heavy cornices above the window curtains, and they were looped back with massive cords and tassels. All was perfection-at least its owners believed it to be SO; certain ly it was comfortable, and costly, and very showy.
 like to come home to home like this, Mir. Smithers used to say, rub- ping his hands as he stood before the ire. There is no nonsense about it. 9
 So Mrs. Smithers thought herself, until she went one morning to listen to an amateur lecture con Taste in Fur nlshing." When tho speaker, a red haired young lady, in a purple dress without Q wrinkle, like pre- -Raphaelite figure, had finished her lecture, ofwhich not one word was original, poor Mrs. Smithers was in despair. Taste was evidently something she knew nothing about. She had been proud of her home: now she felt that she should be ashamed to let this purple young lady enter it's doors.
 How many things were wrong there her carpets, her curtains, her doors, her nantel-pieces, her verJ chairs. Oh if MT. Smithers had but been there What would he have said But Mir. Smithers vas away travelling on business. He would be gone long while; would he learn while away that his house was all wrong? He might. Then it came like an inspiration to poor Mrs. Smithers that as her dear Smithers never was
 mean about money" she might make his house right for him before he re- turned home.
 Mrs. Smithers, though she prided her self on her taste," was not a literary woman, and she fancied that the Ter ence Shook so often allu Jed to in the lee ture was some fashionable upholsterer Probably the purple young lady had he1 own house furnished and arranged by him.
 Mrs. Smithers, on going home, looked m vain for this famous upholsterer ir the directory. Finally, she ventured te ask better informed friend tWho Ter ence SEg skwHs ?" and where his Earth ly Paradise" that the purple young lad, had spoken of, could be obtained
 Having received the revelation thaI the " Earthly Paradise was book, and that in this the sayings" 50 ofter 5 quoted were to be found, Mrs. Smither, at once procured it from bookselle5 and sat down to study it.
 The result was such house-cleaninG the world never saw before. Various strange men and women, all the servants and Mrs. Smithers herself, toiled iron morning until night for six weeks, ant on the very eve of her husbands return Mrs. Smithers, delighted with her sue cess, went through her home and de clared it perfect.
 And now 8 carriage drives up to tn door. Mrs. Smithers flies down stairs and in moment vanishes in the recesse of an enormous ulster. A trunk i bumped into the hall, portmantea, follows; the door bangs. and MT. Smith CTS looks about for his hat-rack with bi mirror, round knobs, aud solid ,. Hm