They saw her meaning at once and agreed with her that it would not be suitable.
“I decorated a small apartment last winter,” she said, “that turned out very happily. The sitting room was one of these scarlet lacquer rooms and the bed-room was done in tones of pale green and dull orange. You felt as if you were sitting in an orange grove in Florida on an evening when a frost was expected and they were burning smudges to warm the trees.”
“I know,” cried Dorothy, “I’ve seen them do that. You see the oranges gleaming through the misty smoke, and it’s all hazy and beautiful.”
“It turned out well in this room that I did,” said Miss Graham, modestly, “but if you accept the blue and pink colorings for the other rooms here,” she said, turning to Mrs. Smith with a smile, “I’m afraid your own room will have to be of some delicate tone to harmonize with them.”
“There are certain shades of yellow, that would be suitable,” returned Mrs. Smith.
“A primrose yellow,” answered Miss Graham, “would be charming, and it would not be hard to find a lovely chintz, that would give you just the spring-like atmosphere that you’d enjoy having about you all the time.”
“I think we’re going to have this floor a little piece of spring all the year around,” said Ethel Blue; and again Miss Graham flashed at her a look of understanding.
CHAPTER VII
CLOSETS AND STEPMOTHERS
After they had shown all the rest of the house to Miss Daisy the family party gathered on the brick terrace outside of the drawing room to investigate lemonade and little cakes. The Ethels had brought the lemonade from home in a thermos bottle which kept it cool and refreshing, and that morning Dorothy had made some “hearts and rounds” which proved most appetizing with the cool drink.
A few canvas chairs which Mrs. Smith had sent over from home, so that she might have something to sit down on when she visited the new house, were all the furniture of the veranda, but the girls found several boxes which the workmen had left, and they laid planks on them and made benches that were entirely comfortable. A similar arrangement with the boxes turned on their ends provided a little table on which they placed the refreshments. Paper cups answered every necessary purpose, although they were not beautiful, and paper plates held the hearts and rounds just as well as if they had been china.