were now adopting these as rapidly as money could procure them—­the brother and sister had remained comparatively unaffected by the consequences of the transformation scene.  Certainly their home had.  It was old-fashioned in its garniture and its gentility.  It spoke of a day, not so many years before, when high thinking had led to blinking where domestic decoration was concerned, and people had bought ugly wooden and worsted things to live with because only the things of the spirit seemed of real importance.  Still time, with its marvellous touch, has often the gift of making furniture and upholstery, which were hideous when bought, look interesting and cosey when they have become old-fashioned.  In this way Pauline Wilbur’s parlor was a delightful relic of a day gone by.  There was scarcely a pretty thing in it, as Wilbur himself well knew, yet, as a whole, it had an atmosphere—­an atmosphere of simple unaffected refinement.  Their domestic belongings had come to them from their parents, and they had never had the means to replenish them.  When, in due time, they had realized their artistic worthlessness, they had held to them through affection, humorously conscious of the incongruity that two such modern individuals as themselves should be living in a domestic museum.  Then, presto! friends had begun to congratulate them on the uniqueness of their establishment, and to express affection for it.  It had become a favorite resort for many modern spirits—­artists, literary men, musicians, self-supporting women—­and Pauline’s oyster suppers, cooked in her grandmother’s blazer, were still a stimulus to high thinking.

So matters stood when Selma entered it as a bride.  Her coming signified the breaking up of the household and the establishment.  Pauline had thought that out in her clear brain over night since receiving Wilbur’s telegram.  Wilbur must move into a modern house, and she into a modern flat.  She would keep the very old things, such as the blazer and some andirons and a pair of candlesticks, for they were ancient enough to be really artistic, but the furniture of the immediate past, her father and mother’s generation, should be sold at auction.  Wilbur and she must, if only for Selma’s sake, become modern in material matters as well as in their mental interests.

Pauline proceeded to unfold this at the dinner-table that evening.  She had heard in the meanwhile from her brother, the story of Selma’s divorce and the explanation of his sudden marriage; and in consequence, she felt the more solicitous that her sister-in-law’s new venture should begin propitiously.  It was agreed that Wilbur should make inquiries at once about houses further uptown, and that his present lease from year to year should not be renewed.  She said to Selma: