CHAPTER IV.

THE LIBRARY NOT MADE FOR THE TABLE. THE RECESS THAT WAS NOT REALIZED AND THE WINDOW THAT WAS.-THE LIBRARY AS FINISHED.-DOCTOR OLDHAM'S OPINION ABOUT GOOD COMPANY. -HE QUOTES DOCTOR SOUTHEY AND DISCOURSES ABOUT HIM.

THE Library, as well as the table, was a longcherished ideal of the Doctor's, on which he had set his heart even more than on the table. Indeed, he always asserted that, although the table was made first, yet it was made for the library, and not the library for it.

In giving directions for the library, the Doctor had, as in the matter of the table, gone according to the long looked-at image in his mind's eye, and in the same way of guessing at the dimensions and other details; yet some of the disasters almost inevitably resulting from the difficulty of getting the exact measurement of spiritual images and hitting their proper visible effects, were prevented in this case by the good sense of Mrs. Oldham, who, being

on the spot and daily consulted by the Doctor as the work went on, luckily prevented more than one of his images from getting irretrievably realized; which, however well they might look in an ideal picture, would have been any thing but satisfactory in an actual room.

It was, for instance, a part of his ideal to have a large recessed window at the east end, giving more expression to the room, and harmonizing better with the west end, which was a semi-octagon with three windows. And he thought he had an ingenious contrivance for this; but Mrs. Oldham, who did not get a clear notion of his plan until after the studs for the recess were set, pointed out to him that the effect of it would be to give them two closets which they did not need, at the expense of room which they did need. So he gave up his contrivance and had the studs taken down.

But as for the window, it was too late to alter that. The Doctor's ideal had got realized, and it was certainly a mistake. It should have been a window with three compartments-a wide window in the middle, and a narrower one on each side, separated from the larger one by mullions. But it was made with only two compartments, being in fact nothing but two ordinary windows set as near

each other as they could be put. The Doctor thought it looked very well in his ideal; but when it got. actually made, he became conscious of a secret dissatisfaction with it, which he would not allow himself to analyze or dwell upon, much less breathe a word of to his wife. He hoped indeed she would not see any thing to condemn; but he had an inward dread she might for, although she had no eye for ideals, her observation of every thing that falls within the scope of ordinary sight was very quick; and, moreover, although entirely unconscious of it herself, she had a wonderful talent for giving exact expression to any secret misgiving he might have, and of suggesting comparisons discreditable to his ideals, without the least intention of wounding him.

Mrs. Oldham had been unable to offer any objection to the window while it was in its ideal state, notwithstanding the Doctor's clearest description of it, for the reason, as I have said, that she had no eye for ideals. But as soon as it became sufficiently real to be visible to her, she said to him:

"Husband, I don't like it. It looks just like a shop-window."

There it was! She had hit the very secret of

his dissatisfaction and made it shockingly palpable. He could no longer shut his eyes to it. That comparison, too! It was just putting his ideal into the pillory, exposing the child of his fancy to irretrievable ignominy. He felt it acutely.

"I wish, my dear," he collected himself at length to say, "I wish you had said so in time to

have had it made different."

"I am sure," she replied, "I did not think it was going to look so."

"I think it would perhaps have looked better," said he, fishing for a crumb of consolation, "if we had kept to the original plan about the recess.'

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Husband," rejoined Mrs. Oldham, "how would that have altered the shape of the window ?

The Doctor saw she thought the question unanswerable; so he said no more.

He was in the right, however. Even the putting up of the bookcases on each side of the window had something of the same ameliorating effect the recess would have had. And owing partly perhaps to this, and partly to the familiar sight of it, the window soon ceased to trouble Mrs. Oldham ; and the Doctor was not one to trouble himself about any thing that did not trouble his wife. He

had a favorite dilemma he was very fond of propounding, to the effect that there are two sorts of things a wise man will never trouble himself about -namely, those which he can help, and those which he cannot help. He thought it an infallible recipe against trouble before he was married; but since that event, though he was still as fond as ever of propounding it to his friends, yet somehow he had not the same faith in its universal efficacy, for it did not keep him, as perfectly as it should do, from being troubled at his wife's troubles. It was therefore fortunate for him-and he was sensible of it as a great blessing-that she was not prone to have troubles, and the few she did have were neither very great ones nor lasted very long.

You are to understand, therefore, that on the whole, when everything was completed, the Doctor and his wife regarded their library with mutual satisfaction and content. And it deserved their regard in spite of the window. It was a welllighted and remarkably cheerful room, fitted up with glazed bookcases on all sides saving the spaces taken up by the windows and by the doors-one opening from the hall, and the other into the Doctor's study. The whole finishing and furnishing was in every respect studiously simple and unpre