le breadth of
the house, and, with this hall-space between, have a music-room back
for the young ladies?"

Lapham looked helplessly at his wife, whose quicker apprehension had
followed the architect's pencil with instant sympathy. "First-rate!"
she cried.

The Colonel gave way. "I guess that would do. It'll be kind of odd,
won't it?"

"Well, I don't know," said the architect. "Not so odd, I hope, as the
other thing will be a few years from now." He went on to plan the rest
of the house, and he showed himself such a master in regard to all the
practical details that Mrs. Lapham began to feel a motherly affection
for the young man, and her husband could not deny in his heart that the
fellow seemed to understand his business. He stopped walking about the
room, as he had begun to do when the architect and Mrs. Lapham entered
into the particulars of closets, drainage, kitchen arrangements, and
all that, and came back to the table. "I presume," he said, "you'll
have the drawing-room finished in black walnut?"

"Well, yes," replied the architect, "if you like. But some less
expensive wood can be made just as effective with paint. Of course you
can paint black walnut too."

"Paint it?" gasped the Colonel.

"Yes," said the architect quietly. "White, or a little off white."

Lapham dropped the plan he had picked up from the table. His wife made
a little move toward him of consolation or support.

"Of course," resumed the architect, "I know there has been a great
craze for black walnut. But it's an ugly wood; and for a drawing-room
there is really nothing like white paint. We should want to introduce
a little gold here and there. Perhaps we might run a painted frieze
round under the cornice--garlands of roses on a gold ground; it would
tell wonderfully in a white room."

The Colonel returned less courageously to the charge. "I presume
you'll want Eastlake mantel-shelves and tiles?" He meant this for a
sarcastic thrust at a prevailing foible of the profession.

"Well, no," gently answered the architect. "I was thinking perhaps a
white marble chimney-piece, treated in the refined Empire style, would
be the thing for that room."

"White marble!" exclaimed the Colonel. "I thought that had gone out
long ago."

"Really beautiful things can't go out. They may disappear for a little
while, but they must come back. It's only the ugly things that stay
out after they've had their day."

Lapham could only v