Page:Arminell, a social romance (1896).djvu/492

484 tarnished material, with a haughty air, and bid that it be put in with the rest—it will serve for a charity in which you are interested: to wit—but you do not add this—the charity that begins and ends with home.

Next to the enjoyment of shopping with a friend, who is lavish of her money, comes the luxury of discussing the purchases after, of debating whether this stamped velvet was, after all, the right thing, and whether that tapestry silk would not have been better; whether the carpet and the curtains will harmonise, and the paper for the wall accord with both.

It was a disappointment to Mrs. Welsh that Arminell did not have a dado with water-reeds and sunflowers, and storks flying or standing on one leg. "It is the fashion, I assure you," said she, "as you may see in our drawing-room at Shepherd's Bush." But then, it was a shock of surprise and adoring admiration that came on Tryphœna Welsh, when, after having advised jute for curtains and sofa-covers, because so extraordinarily cheap, Arminell had deliberately turned to stamped velvet.

"Dear me!" said Mrs. Welsh to her husband one night, when they were alone, "how you do worship Miss Inglett. Not that I'm jealous. Far be it from me, for I admire her as much as I love her; but I am surprised at it in you—and she related to the nobility. It is inconsistent, Welsh, with your professions, as inconsistent as it would be for Mr. Spurgeon to be found crossing himself in a Roman Catholic chapel."

"My dear Tryphœna," said James Welsh, "I do not deny that the British aristocracy has its good qualities—for one, its want of stuck-upedness. For another, its readiness to adapt itself to circumstances. It is part of their education, and it is not part of ours, and I don't pretend to that which I have not got. They used to make wooden dolls with a peg through their joints, so that they would move their