'The Patent Steel Furniture Company makes it, and it has got very greatly into vogue for small rooms. I thought that perhaps you would allow me to present you with a set for your drawing-room.'
'I'm sure it is very kind of you to think of it,' said Mrs. Green.
'Uncommonly so,' said Mr. Green. But both Mr. Green and Mrs. Green knew the lady, and their hopes did not run high.
And then the door was opened and there stood the furniture to view. There stood the furniture, except the three subtracted chairs, and the loo table. The claw and leg of the table indeed were standing there, but the top was folded up and lying on the floor beside it. 'I hope you'll like the pattern,' began Mrs. Mason. 'I'm told that it is the prettiest that has yet been brought out. There has been some little accident about the screw of the table, but the smith in the village will put that to rights in five minutes. He lives so close to you that I didn't think it worth while to have him up here.'
'It's very nice,' said Mrs. Green, looking round her almost in dismay.
'Very nice indeed,' said Mr. Green, wondering in his mind for what purpose such utter trash could have been manufactured, and endeavouring to make up his mind as to what they might possibly do with it. Mr. Green knew what chairs and tables should be, and was well aware that the things before him were absolutely useless for any of the ordinary purposes of furniture.
'And they are the most convenient things in the world,' said Mrs. Mason, 'for when you are going to change house you pack them all up again in these boxes. Wooden furniture takes up so much room, and is so lumbersome.'
'Yes, it is,' said Mrs. Green.
'I'll have them all put up again and sent down in the cart tomorrow.'
'Thank you; that will be very kind,' said Mr. Green, and then the ceremony of the presentation was over. On the following day the boxes were sent down, and Mrs. Mason might have abstracted even another chair without detection, for the cases lay unheeded from month to month in the curate's still unfurnished room. 'The fact is they cannot afford a carpet,' Mrs. Mason afterwards said to one of her daughters, 'and with such things as those they are quite right to keep them up till they can be used with advantage. I always gave Mrs. Green credit for a good deal of prudence.'
And then, when the show was over, they descended again into the drawing-room,—Mr. Green and Mrs. Mason went first, and Creusa followed. Penelope was thus so far behind as to be able to speak to her friend without being heard by the others.
'You know mamma,' she said, with a shrug of her shoulders and a look of scorn in her eye.
