ides this, he loved sunshine
too much to buy them, if he could. He had been enough with artists to
know that heavy damask curtains darken precisely that part of the
window where the light proper for pictures and statuary should come
in, namely, the upper part. The fashionable system of curtains lights
only the legs of the chairs and the carpets, and leaves all the upper
portion of the room in shadow. John's windows have shades which can at
pleasure be drawn down from the top or up from the bottom, so that
the best light to be had may always be arranged for his little
interior."

"Well, papa," said Marianne, "in your chemical analysis of John's
rooms, what is the next thing to the sunshine?"

"The next," said I, "is harmony of color. The wall-paper, the
furniture, the carpets, are of tints that harmonize with one another.
This is a grace in rooms always, and one often neglected. The French
have an expressive phrase with reference to articles which are out of
accord,--they say that they swear at each other, I have been in rooms
where I seemed to hear the wall-paper swearing at the carpet, and the
carpet swearing back at the wall-paper, and each article of furniture
swearing at the rest. These appointments may all of them be of the
most expensive kind, but with such dis-harmony no arrangement can ever
produce anything but a vulgar and disagreeable effect. On the other
hand, I have been in rooms where all the material was cheap and the
furniture poor, but where, from some instinctive knowledge of the
reciprocal effect of colors, everything was harmonious, and produced a
sense of elegance.

"I recollect once traveling on a Western canal through a long stretch
of wilderness, and stopping to spend the night at an obscure
settlement of a dozen houses. We were directed to lodgings in a common
frame house at a little distance, where, it seemed, the only hotel was
kept. When we entered the parlor, we were struck with utter amazement
at its prettiness, which affected us before we began to ask ourselves
how it came to be pretty. It was, in fact, only one of the miracles of
harmonious color working with very simple materials. Some woman had
been busy there, who had both eyes and fingers. The sofa, the common
wooden rocking-chairs, and some ottomans, probably made of old
soap-boxes, were all covered with American nankeen of a soft
yellowish-brown, with a bordering of blue print. The window-shades,
the table-cover, and the piano-cl