A first-class Brussels carpet, somewhat worn, was bought at auction. This was so remodeled as to appear new and elegant. A fringed lambrequin for the mantel-shelf (which was _not_ marble); a few pretty, but cheap, brackets; a few photographs of fine paintings, which had lain out of sight for years, made into passe-partouts, and hung judiciously. Pretty imitation chintz curtains, with lambrequin top, for the bed-room; sheer muslin, lined with Turkey-red, for the living-room; well-fitting chintz covers for the old couch and armchair, the colors made to harmonize with carpet and wall-paper, which latter was, of course, neutral-tinted; a hanging-basket, already well-filled and growing, in each window; a few inexpensive, urn-shaped vases for flowers; a graceful evening lamp. This last Jannette feared an extravagance, but “it will be so restful to our eyes; think of it, dear, _every_ evening.” When all was ready, a house-warming was given, and was not our little wife proud of her success? She really had not realized before her own talent and good taste. “I am sure, Mr. T., you must have spent hundreds of dollars on all this,” said Mr. T.’s partner’s wife, who frowned severely on all extravagance. Jannette shook her head and smiled. And now, in a few weeks, all was ready for the newcomer--Master Thomas Bliss Trescott, as he was named. In after years the mother still remembered the pleasure she had had in the arrangement of their lovely home, but she did not connect that fact with the sterling intellect and marked artistic ability of her fourth child (and second son), notwithstanding that he was seen by all to be head and shoulders above the rest in all that makes a man. JEALOUSY. No influence, excepting the desire to dislodge and so murder the unborn, has so damaging an effect on the character of the child as jealousy. I have but too often seen the workings of this emotion and its consequent evils. I once lived in the house of a good-hearted young Irish woman, the mother of two girls, respectively two and five years old. The younger was a happy, rollicking little dot, needing small care, and finding amusement in everything about her. The older child, a coarse, distorted likeness of her mother in form and feature, presented a strong contrast to her sister. There was a sly, malicious expression in her light blue eyes--at times a vicious leer so horrible in childhood. I used to watch her at my leisure, and have seen her deliberately stick a pin into her sister and push her down, standing silently pleased to see she was hurt. “Do you see how different in disposition your two girls are?” I one day asked the mother. “Oh! sure, I do, Miss,” she replied, “and I don’t see why the good God give Katy thim ways she has. She angers me that much sometimes, that I could just kill her, I could, when I see her wid me own eyes pinch the baby, and the darlint looking up as innocent, smilin’, wid the tears in her eyes, as if she didn’t believe it, nohow.”