Mrs. Murden had gone into Evans & Gilman's to "price," as she called it, the very plaid she now scorned--for her best silk was giving way--when she overheard its sentence pronounced by those red lips, with a shrug of the sable-caped shoulders of the fashionable lady. Mrs. Barker pronounced the purple "exceedingly stylish;" Mrs. Murden "caught the verdict as it fell;" and, from that moment, her affections were centred upon it. Not that she had any claims to being stylish herself; on the contrary, her little home, in a far away cross street, was exceedingly plain; but the young wife had undeveloped aspirations towards a less humble sphere, shown by being, in some sort, a leader of the circle in which she visited. It was not large, or very select, but there were some well-educated, well-bred people, some very warm, true hearts, and, as the case will always be, others as empty-minded, selfish, and frivolous as if they were really in fashionable life. Mrs. Murden, as her husband sometimes noticed, had rather an inclination to court the latter party, as they dressed and furnished the most showily, and, in fact, to outvie them--a disposition which the far-sighted Mr. Murden dreaded not a little. He was decidedly a domestic man, and, besides, as his wife often said, so her dress was put on properly, with a clean collar and undersleeves, he did not know half the time whether it was silk or calico. Indeed, he had brought quite a serious attack of pouting upon himself, by calling his wife's new green foulard a calico. You may be sure, he had entirely forgotten that purple silks were ever manufactured by the next day at dinner, when he was reminded of it by Mrs. Murden abruptly terminating a long fit of musing by the exclamation-- "I should be perfectly happy, if I had it." Mr. Murden, foolish man, supposed at first that she meant a picture of the children, who were marvellously near of an age--two of them. "Well, dear, when shall we take them down to Root's? Say the word." For Mr. Murden himself thought it a great pity that such remarkable beauty should be lost to the world. No doubt, Root would insist on a duplicate for his show-case. "Root's! I was talking about _that silk_, Mr. Murden. What has Root got to do with it, I'd like to know?" Mrs. Murden seemed inclined to help to tarts before the dessert was served. "Oh!" And Mr. Murden resumed his carver, helping himself to a second cut of beef. "Bless my soul, how much women do think of dress! Who's going to have a new one?" "It's high time I had, dear. Only think, we've been married three years next month, and I've only had one silk in that while." "Why, you had one in the summer--that striped frock and cape." "That's an India; we don't call these thin things anything. I mean a good, heavy _poult de soie_, like my mazarine blue I had when we were married. It's fairly gone now, careful as I have been. It's been turned and cleaned, and now it's so shabby I hate to put it on."