“It’s very charming,” murmured Mrs. Hancock to her sister. “I see your hand here.”
“Not very much,” demurred Miss Graham. “I merely made an occasional suggestion or told them how to work out some good idea of their own. The color scheme is Mrs. Smith’s.”
“It is charming,” repeated Mrs. Hancock, her eyes moving from the yellow-white wood-work to the natural pongee walls and then on to the next shade of yellow, found in the draperies of the windows, made of a heavy linen dyed to strike the next note in the color scale. The furniture was upholstered in three or four shades of brown; a bit of gold flashed sombrely from the shadows, and an occasional touch of dull blue brought out the blue tones of the handsome rugs.
Every one took a peek into the upper rooms as they passed upstairs to the attic. Ayleesabet’s nursery received much praise, and the delicate tones of the bed-rooms won immediate approval. In the attic they found comfortable wicker chairs arranged about the room facing a small stage before which hung a tan linen curtain.
“What are the children going to do?” asked Mr. Emerson of his hostess.
“I really don’t know,” returned Mrs. Smith. “Dorothy said it would be appropriate for Columbus Day, so I entrusted it all to the young people.”
When the curtain was drawn the Club was disclosed grouped on the stage. They sang Miss Bates’s “America the Beautiful,” Mrs. Smith accompanying them on the piano.
“That’s all I have to do with the program,” she said to Mr. Emerson when it was over and she had again taken her seat beside him.
Then Tom told the story of Columbus—how he was born at Genoa and became a sailor and when he was about thirty-four years old went with a brother to live in Lisbon. Tom was seated on the stage at a table and two or three of the others sat about as if they were in a library listening to the talk. They entered quite naturally into the conversation.
“Four years later,” continued Tom, “somebody gave Columbus a map that put the Orient directly west of Spain, and Columbus became filled with a desire to search out the East by sailing west.”