e attack from Miss Lyons. "I understand that most of them
are designed by individuals who have failed to succeed as sign painters
on account of color-blindness, or by draughtsmen who have lost their
positions because of the paramount influence of epilepsy on their work."

"I should estimate that they have about twenty-eight thousand samples
at Heminway and Shipman's," the girl continued. "Cousin Henrietta
possesses a fine old spirit of thoroughness which made it necessary for
us to see them all. We sat on a red plush sofa while a truly affable
young man kept flopping the sheets of samples over the back of an
easel. That is, he was truly affable for an hour or two; after that he
grew a little reticent. At first some of the samples interested me.
There was one design of a row of cockatoos, each one standing on a
wreath of lilacs, that was fascinating, and I liked one that looked
like a flock of nectarines hiding in the interstices of a steam
radiator. The young man made encouraging suggestions at first, but at
the last, scarcely,--although I was so nearly stupefied that I doubt
whether I would have heard him even if he had said what he really
thought." She took up her cup. "But the walk here did me a lot of
good--I walked fast."

"Where your cousin made her mistake," Wilkinson observed, "was in going
in for wall papers at all. She should have abandoned the idea of
papering her walls, and retained our talented friend, Stanwood Pelgram,
to paint them, instead. A splendid conception! How I should like to
have attended the pirate view of Miss Lyons's flat, when the last coat
of distemper had dried on the parlor ceiling and Stanwood had put the
affectionate finishing touches on the decorative panel portrait of
Lucretia Borgia in the oval above the kitchen stove! The whole thing
would have been a magnificent and unusual symbol of the triumph of
paint over paper--a new and vivid illustration of the practical value
of true art."

"Oh, nonsense, Charlie!" said Pelgram, much annoyed at being made the
rather vulnerable subject of Wilkinson's humor.

His tormentor was delighted at perceiving his victim writhe and went
gayly on.

"But unhappily our Stanwood is so impractical. Probably he would have
declined the commission. Atmospheric envelopes slowly en route to the
dead letter office of dream pastels demand his whole attention.
Painting is crass; he mildly cameos. Tonal nuances--shades of
imperceptible differenc