mposition? A bit of gray green moss upon
a black rock, a field of yellow dandelions, a pink and white spike of
hollyhocks, an orange-colored butterfly poised on a stalk of
larkspur--what color-plans are these!

[Illustration: A LOUIS SEIZE BEDROOM IN ROSE AND BLUE AND CREAM]

I think that the first consideration after you have settled your
building-site should be to place your house so that its windows may
frame Nature's own pictures. With windows facing north and south, where
all the fluctuating and wayward charm of the season unrolls before your
eyes, your windows become the finest pictures that you can have. When
this has been arranged, it is time to consider the color-scheme for the
interior of the house, the colors that shall be in harmony with the
window-framed vistas, the colors that shall be backgrounds for the
intimate personal furnishings of your daily life. You must think of your
walls as backgrounds for the colors you wish to bring into your rooms.
And by colors I do not mean merely the primary colors, red and blue and
yellow, or the secondary colors, green and orange and violet, I mean the
white spaces, the black shadows, the gray halftones, the suave creams,
that give you the _feeling_ of color.

How often we get a more definite idea of brilliant color from a
white-walled room, with dark and severe furniture and no ornaments, no
actual color save the blue sky framed by the windows and the flood of
sunshine that glorifies everything, than from a room that has a dozen
fine colors, carefully brought together, in its furnishings!

We must decide our wall colors by the aspect of our rooms. Rooms facing
south may be very light gray, cream, or even white, but northern rooms
should be rich in color, and should suggest warmth and just a little
mystery. Some of you have seen the Sala di Cambio at Perugia. Do you
remember how dark it seems when one enters, and how gradually the
wonderful coloring glows out from the gloom and one is comforted and
soothed into a sort of dreamland of pure joy, in the intimate
satisfaction of it all? It is unsurpassable for sheer decorative charm,
I think.

For south rooms blues and grays and cool greens and all the dainty gay
colors are charming. Do you remember the song Edna May used to sing in
"The Belle of New York"? I am not sure of quoting correctly, but the
refrain was: "Follow the Light!" I have so often had it in mind when
I've been planning my color schemes--"Follow the Li