I AM a frank, open-hearted man, as, perhaps, you have by this time perceived, and you will not, therefore, be surprised to know that I read my last article on the carpet to my wife and the girls before I sent it to the “Atlantic,” and we had a hearty laugh over it together. My wife and the girls, in fact, felt that they could afford to laugh, for they had carried their point, their reproach among women was taken away, they had become like other folks. Like other folks they had a parlor, an undeniable best parlor, shut up and darkened, with all proper carpets, curtains, lounges, and marble-topped tables, too good for human nature’s daily food; and being sustained by this consciousness, they cheerfully went on receiving their friends in the study, and having good times in the old free-and-easy way; for did not everybody know that this room was not their best? and if the furniture was old-fashioned and a little the worse for antiquity, was it not certain that they had better, which they could use, if they would? “And supposing we wanted to give a party,” said Jenny, “how nicely our parlor would light up! Not that we ever do give parties, but if we should,—and for a wedding-reception, you know.” I felt the force of the necessity; it was evident that the four or five hundred extra which we had expended was no more than such solemn possibilities required. “Now, papa thinks we have been foolish,” said Marianne, “and he has his own way of making a good story of it; but, after all, I desire to know if people are never to get a new carpet. Must we keep the old one till it actually wears to tatters?” This is a specimen of the _reductio ad absurdum_ which our fair antagonists of the other sex are fond of employing. They strip what we say of all delicate shadings and illusory phrases, and reduce it to some bare question of fact, with which they make a home-thrust at us. “Yes, that’s it; are people _never_ to get a new carpet?” echoed Jenny. “My dears,” I replied, “it is a fact that to introduce anything new into an apartment hallowed by many home-associations, where all things have grown old together, requires as much care and adroitness as for an architect to restore an arch or niche in a fine old ruin. The fault of our carpet was that it was in another style from everything in our room, and made everything in it look dilapidated. Its colors, material, and air belonged to another manner of life, and were a constant plea for alterations; and you see it actually drove out and expelled the whole furniture of the room, and I am not sure yet that it may not entail on us the necessity of refurnishing the whole house.” “My dear!” said my wife, in a tone of remonstrance; but Jane and Marianne laughed and colored. “Confess, now,” said I, looking at them, “have you not had secret designs on the hall- and stair-carpet?”