He had also added a sofa to his equipment. Now, when he came
in tired or with a headache, he could stretch himself at full length. He
was lying on it at this moment.
Polly, too, had reason to feel satisfied with the change. A handsome
little Broadwood, with a ruby-silk and carved-wood front, stood against
the wall of her drawing-room; gilt cornices surmounted the windows; and
from the centre of the ceiling hung a lustre-chandelier that was the
envy of every one who saw it: Mrs. Henry Ocock's was not a patch on it,
and yet had cost more. This time Mahony had virtually been able to give
his wife a free hand in her furnishing. And in her new spare room she
could put up no less than three guests!
Of course, these luxuries had not all rained on them at once. Several
months passed before Polly, on the threshold of her parlour, could
exclaim, with an artlessness that touched her husband deeply: "Never in
my life did I think I should have such a beautiful room!" Still, as
regarded money, the whole year had been a steady ascent. The nest-egg he
had left with the lawyer had served its purpose of chaining that old
hen, Fortune, to the spot. Ocock had invested and re-invested on his
behalf--now it was twenty "Koh-i-noors," now thirty "Consolidated
Beehives"--and Mahony was continually being agreeably surprised by the
margins it threw off in its metamorphoses. That came of his having
placed the matter in such competent hands. The lawyer had, for instance,
got him finally out of "Porepunkahs" in the nick of time--the reef had
not proved as open to the day as was expected--and pulled him off, in
the process, another three hundred odd.
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