Ethel Morton at Sweetbriar Lodge Part 12

"I never advise paper in bed-rooms unless there's good reason to do so,"

answered the decorator. "Here is what I should suggest for an apple-blossom room--though perhaps you have some ideas that you would like to have carried out?" she interrupted herself to ask Dorothy.

"No," said Dorothy, "as long as it's pink and pretty I don't care how it is decorated."

Miss Graham stood in the centre of the room now, noticing how the suns.h.i.+ne fell on the floor, the shadow at the end where the sleeping porch was, and the possible positions for the various articles of furniture.

"I seem to see these walls washed with a white which is tinted with a faint flush of pink," said Miss Graham slowly, as she thought it out.

"That means a pink so delicate that it will not irritate the weariest nerves and will soothe to sleep by its beauty. The wood-work should be similar in tone but a trifle more like ivory. Do you know that chintz that has blurry, indefinite flowers on it?"

Dorothy said that she did.

"I saw a lovely piece of it the other day with a design of apple-blossoms. I should use that as a covering for your bed, your couch, your chairs, and for hangings for the windows. Then across one end of the wall--on that shadiest side,--I should throw a branch of apple-blossoms, painted in the same blurry, indefinite way in which the flowers appear on the chintz. I knew a man who was enough of the artist in his soul to do the thing as if the wall had suddenly grown thin and through it you could see an apple tree in blossom out in the orchard."

"I think that would be perfectly lovely," said Dorothy, and all the others expressed the greatest pleasure at the proposed scheme of decoration.

"Here is what I would suggest for the windows," said Miss Daisy, taking out her note book, and sketching with a few rapid lines the folds of apple-blossom chintz, falling straight at the sides, with a valance at the top showing a very slight fullness.

"Between these and the windows," said Miss Graham, "I should put Swiss muslin, either perfectly plain or dotted or with a fine cross-bar, whichever you like best. I should have those muslin curtains next to the gla.s.s all alike all over the house and the shades, too, so that the effect from the outside will be uniform and not messy."

"That neatness will suit Ethel Brown's ideas of what is harmonious,"

laughed Helen, and Miss Graham flashed her brilliant smile on Ethel Brown, who was nodding her approval of the idea as she listened.

"Now, how had you planned to finish the other sleeping porches?" inquired Miss Graham.

"We thought we'd better have a radiator on the one leading off the nursery," said Mrs. Smith.

"You'll have to be awfully careful about its freezing," warned Miss Graham.

"I suppose we shall, but it seemed as if it might be advisable with a child who has been so delicate as Elisabeth. You will see that the outer ledge of her porch is somewhat higher than either Dorothy's or mine and there are pieces of lattice work to fill in the openings on very cold nights. We thought we'd have out there a low play-table for the baby, and one or two little chairs and a work-table and easy-chair for Miss Merriam."

"There are cotton Chinese rugs that are extremely pretty for upstairs porches," said Miss Graham. "One that is largely white but has a dash of green and pink, would be charming for Dorothy's porch. What color is the baby's room to be?"

"Ethel Blue wants us to have it pale blue."

Again a vivid look of appreciation came into Miss Graham's eyes as she turned them on Ethel Blue, but she merely said, "There are charming Chinese rugs in white with dull blue designs like old Chinese pottery.

Tell me what you had planned in your mind for Elisabeth," she continued, turning toward the young girl and extending her hand so winningly that Ethel found herself not only standing beside her with a feeling that she had been her friend for a long time, but filled with confidence that her suggestions would not be laughed at, and might indeed be really good.

"I thought of walls and paint of white faintly colored with blue. It was just about what you suggested for Dorothy's room, only blue instead of pink; and it seemed to me that there might be blue birds--for happiness, you know--skimming along the walls, up near the top."

"One of those big Chinese rugs that is almost all white, but has a little blue, would be lovely, wouldn't it?" cried Helen, seizing the idea.

"Several small ones would be better," returned Miss Graham, "because a baby's room has to be kept so spick and span that you want to have light rugs that are easy to take up and clean."

"You know those little round seats that you sometimes see in railway waiting rooms?" asked Ethel Blue.

Miss Graham said she had noticed them.

"Don't you think one would be cunning for Elisabeth? The seat part ought to be awfully low and there could be light blue cus.h.i.+ons on it. And then I think it would be fun if there was a low bench running around two sides of the room, with cus.h.i.+ons of the same color on it. It would do for a table and a seat both."

Miss Graham thought the idea was capital.

"How would you paint them?" she asked.

"Wouldn't a sort of bluish-white like the wood-work be pretty," asked Ethel Blue. "You know that s.h.i.+ny paint that is so highly polished that the baby's finger marks won't show on it."

"Enamel paint," translated Miss Graham. "I think it would be very pretty, and I should have all the little chairs and tables painted the same way.

There are a lot of little things that would be charming in the nursery,"

she continued. "You can have a solid table, whose top lifts off, disclosing a sand-pile inside. And some parts of that seat around the room ought to lift up so that the baby can put away her own toys in the box underneath the cus.h.i.+ons."

"I thought a great big doll's house might fit into one corner so that it would be two-sided," said Ethel Blue. "If the lower floor was all one room the baby could walk right in and sit down with the dolls."

"Do you think she could keep still long enough to make a real visit?"

laughed Helen.

"You'll want to interest her in plants and animals as she grows up,"

suggested Miss Graham. "You might begin even now by having an aquarium with a few water plants and some gold fish and you must arrange to have it on a good solid stand so that it won't tip over if Elisabeth should happen to throw her fat little self against it. I suppose she's too small to have had any regular training as yet?" she continued, turning to Mrs.

Smith.

"Miss Merriam, who is taking care of her, is trying some of the Montessori ideas."

"I thought perhaps she was. Madame Montessori tries to make all her training a natural outcome of the children's lives and to develop them to use what they know in their daily occupations. If Elisabeth had a clothes-closet small enough for her to hang up and take down her own dresses and coats and rompers, I think Miss Merriam would find that she would be trying to put them on and fasten them herself very soon."

"Wouldn't a clothes pole about three feet high be too cunning for words,"

exclaimed Ethel Blue, and Dorothy cried, "Do let us have all these things, Mother. Elisabeth will look like a little white Persian kitten, trotting around in this blue and white room!"

"Had you made any plans for your own room, Mrs. Smith?" asked Miss Graham.

"Oh, Aunt Louise, I do wish you'd have one of those gray rooms, with scarlet lacquer furniture," cried Helen eagerly.

Before Mrs. Smith could answer, Miss Graham had interposed a soft objection.

"I wouldn't," she said. "A room like that has several reasons for non-existence. They are very handsome because the real scarlet lacquer is beautiful in itself, and it's valuable too, but a room whose chief appeal to the eye is scarlet is not restful."

"You think scarlet is not a proper color for a bed-room," responded Helen.

"Not at all suitable to my way of thinking. It's exciting, rather than soothing. Another objection to it here is that a room containing such a vivid color should be a dark room, and all of your bed-rooms are splendidly light. But the most serious objection to my mind, is this.

Just step out here in the entry with me for a minute."

They all followed Miss Graham on to the landing at the head of the stairs.

"In a house as small as this," she said, "you can see from the hall into all the bed-rooms. That means that from the decorator's point of view, the entire floor ought to be harmonious. Behind us, for instance, is the baby's delicate blue nursery. Just ahead is Dorothy's apple-blossom room.

Do you think that a room of gray and scarlet and black is going to be harmonious with those delicate tints?"

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."