There was an elegant, imposin’ lookin’ chair set there, by the side of a noble lookin’ table. But to my surprise, and almost mortification, when I went to set down, I set right down through it the first thing. I ketched, almost wildly, at the massive table to try to save myself, and that gave way and split on my hands, as you may say, and fell right over onto me. And then, I see it was made of rough, shackly boards, but upholstered with a gorgeous red and yellow cotton spread, like the chair. They both looked noble. I gathered myself up and righted up the table as well as I could, murmuring almost mechanically to myself: “Put not your trust in princes, nor turkey red calico, Josiah Allen’s wife. Set yourself not down upon them blindly, lest you be wearied and faint in your mind and lame in your body.” I was just a-rehearsin’ this to myself, when the hired girl came back, and says I: “I am glad you have come, for I don’t know but I should have brought the hull house down in ruins onto me, if you hadn’t come jest as you did.” And then she up and told me that that chair and table wasn’t made for use, but jest for looks. She said they wanted a table and a reception chair in the hall, and not bein’ able to buy a sound one, they had made ’em out of boards they had by ’em. “Well,” says I, mildly, “I went right down through the chair, the first thing; it skint me.” I got along through the hall first-rate after this, only I most fell twice. For the floor being carpeted with wall-paper, varnished to be oil cloth aperiently, and the water and snow comin’ in so free at the front door, it had soaked it all up in spots, and bein’ tore up in places, and the varnish makin’ it kinder stiff, it was as bad as a man-trap to ketch folks’ feet in and throw ’em. Jest before we got to the parlor door, I see that, in the agitation of body and mind I had experienced since I came in, I had dropped one of my cuff buttons, nice, black ones, that I had purchased jest before we started, at an outlay of thirty-seven and a half cents. And the hired girl said she would go back and look for it. And while she was a-lookin’, the plasterin’ bein’ off considerable, and the partition jest papered over, I heard ’em a-sayin’, and they seemed to be a-cryin’ as they said it: “What did she want to come here for? I should think she would know enough to stay away!” “To think we have got to be tormented by seein’ her!” says another voice. “I hate to have her come as bad as you do, children,” says another voice that I knew was Delila’s. “But we must try to bear up under it. She won’t probably stay more than two or three hours.” “I thay, I hope she won’t sthay two minith,” says a lispin’ voice. “We won’t let her stay,” says a little fine voice.