"Glad you do; you've got enough of 'em, land knows. _Ornaments!_" The very word seemed to incense her. "I guess you'll find there's something needed besides _ornaments_ when you come right down to livin'. For one thing, you're awful short of dishes and bedding, and you can't ever have no company--unless," she added, with withering sarcasm, "you give 'em little vases to drink out of, and put 'em to bed under a picture-drape, with a pin-cushion or a scent-bag for a piller." And from that time Mrs. Robinson accepted no gift without first consulting her list. It became known that she looked upon useful articles with favor, and brooms and flat-irons and bright tinware arrived constantly. Then it was that the heterogeneous collection began to pall upon Esther. The water-set had not yet been presented, but its magnificence grew upon her, and she persuaded Joe to get a spindle-legged stand on which to place it, although he could not furnish the cottage until October, and had gone in debt for the few necessary things. She pictured the combination first in one corner of the little parlor, then another, finally in a window where it could be seen, from the road. Esther's standards did not vary greatly from her mother's, but she had a bewildered sense that they were somehow stepping from the beaten track of custom. On one or two points, however, she was firm. The few novels that had come within her reach she had conned faithfully. Thus, even before she had a lover, she had decided that the most impressive hour for a wedding was sunrise, and had arranged the procession which was to wend its way towards the church. And in these matters her mother, respecting her superior judgment, stood stanchly by her.