the shade we want."

"Well, I can find that, in good American paper, as I said before, at
from thirty-seven to forty cents a roll. Then, our bordering: there's an
important question, for that must determine the carpet, the chairs, and
everything else. Now what shall be the ground-tint of our rooms?"

"There are only two to choose between," says the lady,--"green and
maroon: which is the best for the picture?"

"I think," says John, looking above the mantel-piece, as if he saw a
picture there,--"I think a border of maroon velvet, with maroon
furniture, is the best for the picture."

"I think so too," said she; "and then we will have that lovely maroon
and crimson carpet that I saw at Lowe's;--it is an ingrain, to be sure,
but has a Brussels pattern, a mossy, mixed figure, of different shades
of crimson; it has a good warm, strong color, and when I come to cover
the lounges and our two old arm-chairs with a pretty maroon _rep_, it
will make such a pretty effect."

"Yes," said John; "and then, you know, our picture is so bright, it will
light up the whole. Everything depends on the picture."

Now as to "the picture," it has a story must be told. John, having been
all his life a worshipper and adorer of beauty and beautiful things,
had never passed to or from his business without stopping at the
print-shop windows, and seeing a little of what was there.

On one of these occasions he was smitten to the heart with the beauty of
an autumn landscape, where the red maples and sumachs, the purple and
crimson oaks, all stood swathed and harmonized together in the hazy
Indian-summer atmosphere. There was a great yellow chestnut-tree, on a
distant hill, which stood out so naturally that John instinctively felt
his fingers tingling for a basket, and his heels alive with a desire to
bound over on to the rustling hill-side and pick up the glossy brown
nuts. Everything was there of autumn, even to the golden-rod and purple
asters and scarlet creepers in the foreground.

John went in and inquired. It was by an unknown French artist, without
name or patrons, who had just come to our shores to study our scenery,
and this was the first picture he had exposed for sale. John had just
been paid a quarter's salary; he bethought him of board-bill and
washerwoman, sighed, and faintly offered fifty dollars.

To his surprise he was taken up at once, and the picture became his.
John thought himself dreaming. He examined his treasure over a