t
iron and richly coloured glass. On the floor were spread valuable rugs
and piles of bright silken cushions, while on an inlaid table stood a
real Turkish hookah and a brass tray with the little egg-shaped cups out
of which travellers in the East are accustomed to sip the strong black
coffee of the natives.

Peggy lifted the ends of her apron in her hands and executed a dance of
triumph on her own account when all was finished, and Rosalind said,
"Weally, we have been clever! I think we may be proud of ourselves!" in
amiable effusion.

The two girls went off to luncheon in a state of halcyon amiability
which was new indeed in the history of their acquaintance, and Lady
Darcy listened with an amused smile to their rhapsodies on the subject
of the morning's work, promising faithfully not to look at anything
until the right moment should arrive, and she should be summoned to gaze
and admire.

By the time that the workers were ready to return to the room, the men
had finished the arrangements at which they had been at work before
lunch, and were beginning to tack festoons of evergreens along the
walls, the dull paper of which had been covered with fluting of soft
pink muslin. The effect was heavy and clumsy in the extreme, and
Rosalind stamped her foot with an outburst of fretful anger.

"Stop putting up those wreaths! Stop at once! They are simply hideous!
It weminds me of a penny weading in the village schoolwoom! You might
as well put up `God save the Queen' and `A Mewwy Chwistmas' at once!
Take them down this minute, Jackson! I won't have them!"

The man touched his forehead, and began pulling out the nails in
half-hearted fashion.

"Very well, miss, as you wish. Seems a pity, though, not to use 'em,
for it took me all yesterday to put 'em together. It's a sin to throw
'em away."

"I won't have them in the house, if they took you a week!" Rosalind
replied sharply, and she turned on her heel and looked appealingly in
Peggy's face. "It's a howwid failure! The woom looks so stiff and
stwaight--like a pink box with nothing in it! Mother won't like it a
bit. What can we do to make it better?"

Peggy scowled, pursed up her lips, pressed her hand to her forehead, and
strode up and down the room, rolling her eyes from side to side, and
going through all the grimaces of one in search of inspiration.
Rosalind was right: unless some device were found by which the shape of
the room could be disguised, the