or the ground work
of wall paper, as well as for window curtains, and chair and sofa colors,
Odalite and Miss Meeke preferred olive, sage, lavender and other delicate,
neutral tints, while Wynnette and Elva loudly advocated, pink, blue and
yellow, or crimson, purple and orange.

At length, without arriving at any mutual understanding, but being rested
from their long walk, they all arose to go through the house. Such a
rambling house! with stairs going up and stairs going down in such
out-of-the-way places; doors opening into rooms in such unexpected
quarters; when they thought they were going to look into a small closet
they found a large chamber; and when they walked through a side passage,
which they thought led outdoors on a porch, behold! it led into some wing
containing more rooms.

Wynnette and Elva chose at least half a dozen different rooms in
succession--this, because it had such a lovely little fireplace and
mantelpiece; that, because it had such funny little cupboards; the other,
because it had such quaint little windows.

Finally they gave up in despair, saying that they must think it over at
home before they could choose among so many.

Odalite, who thought that there was no time to lose if the house was to be
ready for Leonidas on his return, selected the wall paper and the suits of
furniture for all the rooms from the patterns before her, and having
carefully marked them and written her directions, she requested Mr. Copp
to set the mechanics to work at once, and to hurry on the repairs as fast
as justice to the business would permit.

And Col. Anglesea, watching these proceedings, smiled sarcastically.

Having done their errand at Greenbushes, the little party left the house.

"Mr. Beever! Oh! please, where are the big chincapin thickets we have
heard so much about?" inquired Elva, in whose ideas these nuts were, after
all, the most immediately important item in their errand to the farm.

"Yes, honey, you'll find 'em all along both sides of the footpath through
the woods betwixt here and your place, but 'specially where you cross
Chincapin Creek."

"The woods! There! We'll have to go back that way. Ah, Col. Anglesea, how
lovely it will be when Odalite and Leonidas live here! There are so many
lovely ways of going between the two places. Just listen now while I tell
you. We may walk by the shore, as we did this morning, or we may walk
through the woods, as we shall this afternoon. We may ride hor