"I never said you were any such thing. But you know, mother, you'd just sort of persuade me to get what you liked."
"Why Martha! Maybe I would let you get what you wanted!"
Martha went on with the subject hesitatingly. She spoke wistfully, but without hope.
"I'd throw all that junk out and paint it all over. I'd do the floor a nice dull bluey purple—
"A purple floor?"
"Yes. And the woodwork I'd do all creamy yellow, like good fresh butter, or a sort of sea green."
"But, Martha, that floor's oak!"
"Oak takes paint."
"Mine doesn't."
"But I'm just saying what I would do if it was mine. I knew you wouldn't let me. I'd get a little pine chest made, to paint just like my little old one. Oh, wouldn't I love to do it, though! The girls have such lovely rooms, mother. You ought to see Grace Richmond's. It's all vermilion and blue. But she's an orphan, of course." Martha sighed.