At Home with the dines | Page 8

intense interest in a home that the Angel does.
America, foreigners claim, is a country almost as homeless as France is
said to be. The French have no word for home in their language, but
they have homes in fact, which is much more worth while. We
Americans have the lovely word "Home," but we haven't as a nation the
article in fact. Americans have houses, but in truth we are a homeless
race. Only the unenlightened will contradict me for saying that, and for
the opinion of the unenlightened I do not care.
I am not sentimental after the fashion of women who send flowers to
murderers, but I am full of pale and sickly theories as to the making of

a home, and I am free to confess that it would give me more pleasure to
hear people say of me, "Mrs. Jardine's husband is the happiest man I
know," than to have them read on a bronze tablet under a statue in the
Louvre, "Faith Jardine, Sculptor." For if more ambitious women would
devote themselves to making one neglected husband happy the public
would be spared weak and indifferent pictures, silly and rank books,
rainy-day skirts in the house, and heaps of other foolishness and bad
taste, most of which at bottom is not the necessity to work for a living,
but simply Feminine Conceit.
Of course Aubrey and I made some mistakes in spite of all our
precautions, for, happily for me, the Angel can be led away by
enthusiasm, and is not so faultlessly perfect as to be impossible to get
on with. I revel in his weaknesses, they are so human and
companionable, and give me such a feeling of satisfaction when
summing up my own faults. We got so much fun out of shopping for
the house that we dragged out the process to make the delight of it as
lingering as possible. I had planned it all out.
My own room was to be pink. Big pink roses splashed all over the
cretonne counterpane and valance of the bed. Plain pink wall-paper
upon which to hang pictures all in black frames. Small pink roses
tumbling on the ceiling and looking as if every moment they would
scatter their curling petals on the pink rugs on the floor. The dark
furniture against the pink walls toned down the rose colour, which
returned the compliment to the furniture by bringing out the carving on
bold relief.
The guest-room, on the contrary, was to be pale blue with white
furniture. Nothing but gold-framed pictures on the walls and a blue rug
on the floor. The chairs were to be upholstered in blue for this room,
and in pink for mine. Muslin curtains with full deep ruffles, picked out
respectively with pink and blue, would flutter at the sunny windows,
and though simplicity itself, nothing ever struck me as any more
attractive, for it was all mine--my first house--my first housekeeping!
When this dream really came true, I walked around in such a dazed
condition of delight that I was black and blue from knocking myself

into things I didn't see. But even as I did not see the obstructions, I did
not feel the pain of my bruises, for they were all got from my furniture
on corners of my house, and thus were sacred.
As I gazed on the delicate beauty of my pretty little guest-chamber I
fell to wondering who would be its first occupant. Would it be a man or
a woman? Would it be Artie Beguelin, the Angel's best man, or my
sweet friend and bridesmaid, Cary Farquhar?
At any rate, he or she would be welcome--oh, so welcome! I hoped the
invisible guest would be happy, and would feel that ours was not a
compulsory hospitality, with the cost counted beforehand and the
benefits we expected in return discounted. No, whoever it was to be
would be a guest and a friend. On the wall over the bed hung these
words illuminated on vellum and framed, for I had always loved them:
"Sleep sweet, within this quiet room, Oh thou, whoe'er thou art! And let
no mournful yesterday Disturb thy peaceful heart, Nor let to-morrow
fret thy dreams With thoughts of coming ill, Thy Maker is thy
changeless Friend, His love surrounds thee still. Sleep sweet! Good
night."
Afterward, when my first guest had come and gone, this momentary
reverie came back to me, and I looked up at this benediction with tears
in my eyes.
Of course we spent too much money on our house furnishings. We
always do, but after all--and here come my theories again. I would have
fine table and bed linen. The Angel did not believe I would stick to it,
but I did embroider it all