but stand and
admire hypocritically? Her eyes, in spite of herself, seemed drawn to
that bright-hued sham intersected by black lines intended to represent
leading; of the room itself she only saw vaguely that it was not
unworthy of the window.

'Nothing to what they've done with the drawing-room!' said innocent
George, beaming; 'come along, darling, you'll scarcely know the place.'

And Ella, reduced to a condition of stony stupor, followed to the
drawing-room. She did not know the place, indeed. It was a
quaintly-shaped, irregular room, with French windows opening upon the
garden on one side and a deep bow-window on another; when she had last
seen it, the walls were covered with a paper so pleasing in tone and
design that she had almost decided to retain it. That paper was gone,
and in its place a gaudy semi-Chinese pattern of unknown birds, flying
and perching on sprawling branches laden with impossible flowers. And
then the furniture--the 'elegant drawing-room suite' in brilliant plush
and shiny satin, the cheap cabinets, and the ready-made black and gilt
overmantel, with its panels of swans, hawthorn-blossom, and landscapes
sketchily daubed on dead gold--surely it had all been transferred bodily
from the stage of some carelessly mounted farcical comedy!

Ella's horrified gaze gradually took in other features--the china
monkeys swinging on cords, the porcelain parrots hanging in great brass
rings, huge misshapen terra-cotta jars and pots, dead grass in bloated
drain-pipes, tambourines, beribboned and painted with kittens and
robins, enormous wooden _sabots_, gilded Japanese fans, a woolly white
rug and a bright Kidderminster carpet.

'_Oh_, George!' burst involuntarily from her lips.

'I knew you'd be pleased!' he said complacently; 'but I mustn't take all
the credit myself. It was like this, you see: I felt all right enough
about the other rooms, but the drawing-room--that's _your_ room, and I
was awfully afraid of not having it exactly as it ought to be. So I went
to the girls, and I said, "_You_ know all about these things--just make
it what you think Ella will like, and then we can't go wrong!" We had
that Grosvenor Gallery paper down first of all. "Choose something bright
and cheerful," I said, and I don't think they've chosen badly. Then the
pottery and china and all that--those are the girls' presents to _you_,
with their best love.'

'It--it's very good of them,' said poor Ella, on the verge of tears.