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Who is there who has an adequate understanding of picture-frames as adjuncts to, or necessary accompaniments of, great pictures? The splendid carved and gilded wooden frames of some great pictures have a value of their own as examples of design. But how many of them are really suited to the picture which they surround?
The old ladies really did not want it in the parlor, for its length and its green baize cover would make it an encroaching and unbecoming neighbor to the little engravings and the big samplers, the picture-frames of acorns and pine-cones, the fancifully patterned ornaments of clean wheat straw, and all the quaint adornments which had hung upon those walls for so many years.
Loaded with our booty we retreated to the house undiscovered, and spent the night in cooking in one pot instead of sleeping in one bed. The fowls were skinned instead of plucked, and, vandals that we were, dressed on the backs of the picture-frames taken down from the walls.
"Fall in," cried Peter. "The Anarchists are after her. It's dynamite, not lightning. Podds, Don't let them hurt her. Save her. Oh! save her I Why can't I get to her? Don't try to hold me," he cried, as he came in contact with a chair. He caught it up and hurled it across the room, so that it crashed into the picture-frames, smashing chair and frames into fragments.
Jared during his visit to the city had not confined his attention to the display of the Western artists. He had talked with several dealers, and had visited one or two makers of picture-frames, and had taken note of the prominence given to "art" in the offices and corridors of the great hotels. "I tell you," he declared roundly, "paintin' 's got the call everywhere.
When I remember the jolts, and ruts, and roughnesses of the road, I find myself looking at the pier-glass and glass shades, picture-frames, etc., with a sort of respect, due to them for having survived so many dangers.
The house with its inmates and all it contained was lying among the high-piled wreckage within, under my feet; masonry mostly entire fragments of wall interspersed with crumbling mortar and convulsed iron girders that writhed over the surface or plunged sullenly into the depths; fetid rents and gullies in between, their flanks affording glimpses of broken vases, candelabras, hats, bottles, birdcages, writing-books, brass pipes, sofas, picture-frames, tablecloths, and all the paltry paraphernalia of everyday life.
On the walls, all the rich picture-frames glimmered in gold, as did the framework of the chairs, and the heavy gilded pedestals of the marble, alabaster, and mosaic tables. These are very magnificent saloons; and since I have begun to speak of their splendor, I may as well add that the doors are framed in polished, richly veined marble, and the walls hung with scarlet damask.
In his pleasure at managing everything about that house, in distributing the work among the three servants, in marketing, and, in inspecting purchases and nosing into the garbage-barrel, in looking for dust on picture-frames and table-tops and for neglected weeds in the garden walks in this multitude of engrossing delights he forgot his anger over the trick that had been played upon him.
It was little wonder, then, that she tossed and turned upon her pillow that night, and that, when at last she did fall asleep, her dreams were a confused mixture rats flying from a terrier of impossible size, shadowy processions of ancestors in their picture-frames, and a long row of ladies with flaxen locks pointing at her and calling to her, "Tresses dark a maiden mark."
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