As a connoisseur's piece it is not remarkable - not nearly so fine as the tip-table beside it. This I especially like to talk about, not only because it really is the loveliest one of my acquaintance, but also because it is the visible proof of one of my pet theories, that a collector should buy by line rather than by wood. Wood may be improved, line never! When I found the table, - the dealer had just bought it from a junkman for seventy-five cents, - it was a dingy gray, and the top so warped by sun and rain that it was almost bow-shaped. But I saw how slenderly beautiful the base was, with its delicate little spade-feet; and when the dealer offered it to me for ten dollars, all done over, I jumped at the chance. The warp was steamed out of the top, and iron bands on the back held it in shape; scraping and polishing showed the mahogany to be full of fire, and a narrow marquetry of holly and ebony appeared around the edge. It is an example of Hepplewhite, in which wood and line and inlay have beautifully met. The surface is so softly polished that you can see a shadowy face as you bend over it. That's the way it should be; never listen to any renovator who tells you that the old way was to reduce wood to a dull, gleamless level. Long-ago housekeepers knew better than that. One of our family traditions is of my grandmother telling Claiborne, the small dining-room boy, always to polish the table until he could see himself grin in it. And, should you despise domestic legend, I can quote literature to you: old Mr. Hard-castle storming at Charles Marlowe, "Then there's a mahogany table that you may see your face in!" I am dwelling on this point at such length because the potential treasures of so many people are ruined by just this lack of understanding.

The mirror that hangs above the tip-table is another type of Constitution, not so large or so fine as the one in the hall, - only a little more than twenty-five inches, in fact, - but certainly cheap at seven dollars, and very appropriately related to the piece below it. The gilt ornament is a far-away likeness of the Prince of Wales's feathers - the memory of "battles long ago," when the Black Prince rode gallantly forward on the field of Crecy; and, although accounts differ, and some say that Hepplewhite followed the fortunes of the Prince Regent's party, and others that this exquisite designer was merely commissioned to make a set of drawing-room chairs for His Royal Highness, certain it is that, in the inlays and carvings and brasses of his particular school, you will frequently find the symbol of the Three Feathers.

The chair at the right is an honest eighteenth-century piece from old Newburyport, not especially rare, not particularly common. Twelve dollars it cost me, at the same shop where I bought the vase-backed Chippendale, and renovation and rush-seat were only four more. Now here is a thing to remember: if you pay enough in the first place to ensure a sturdy frame, your repair bill will be just so much less. It amounts to the same thing in the end, but, personally, I should rather begin with my big expenditure; you're surer of the stability of your purchase. But, to go back to my chair, the splat is pierced, - the kind of splat, you remember, that Chippendale adopted and embellished, - and joined firmly to the seat. This one, three quarters of the way down, perhaps, meets a little separating bar; the legs are straight; the bottom rushed - a type of seating I both like and approve, although it should not be used too constantly in a room where color is desired. It accords well with the Chippendale; the bowed top has just the same simple, harmonious lines.

Do you know what I like to do, at night, when I 'm walking up Main Street alone? I like to look at our little cottage, and pretend I don't know who lives there, and wonder if they're really nice people. I walk by, trying to feel just what a questioning stranger might. And then I see the tops of my two pretty chairs outlined in the rosy dusk against the windows, and I know that the occupants are all they should be; I should "admire" to know them.

My slant-top desk I 'm very fond of; it's the only one I have, to begin with, and it's a good piece as well: mahogany, made with a craftsman plainness and sense of line, and with excellent oval brasses, A third virtue is its inexpensiveness; it really was a bargain. You see, we had two big, rather pompous, pseudo-Colonial bureaus - wedding-presents they were. We used to think them quite grand, but, oh, my dear Friends in Collecting, why were wisdom and time bestowed upon us but for our tastes to improve? As we lived, we learned; and we were fortunate in finding a dealer in antiquities who had a brother in the secondhand business, and who wanted the bureaus badly enough to take them and twenty-five dollars, and give us the desk instead.

My dear mother says that we have no sentiment at all. I deny it, and point as proof to our sofa. That's not valuable; it's agreeable rather than elegant, and hardly more than a century old; and yet we would not part with it for anything. It has worn various liveries: chintz and tapestry, and, at last, has settled down to a comfortable old age clad in moss-green velours, which has lasted marvelously, for it was covered some years ago, and cost in those fortunate times but ten dollars for cloth and work. Of course I should love a slender Sheraton piece, with a suave marquetry of satinwood inset above the fluted legs; or an Empire sofa, with spreading claw-feet, carved, bountiful cornucopias, and, perhaps (though, I admit, this is asking much of any Furniture Fate), outstretched eagles' heads. But, even if I ever find these miracles, so long as O------and I live, our plain, unpretentious sofa will stay with us. It is endeared by long association; our first antique purchase it was, and we bought it for four dollars from some people who were moving away, and who also threw in an Early Victorian rocking-chair for good measure.