Page:The lady or the tiger and other stories, Stockton (Scribner's 1897 ed).djvu/190

180 it with articles of the Eastlake style, in ash and oak. Of course our bright Wilton carpet did not suit these things, and we took it up, and had the floor puttied and stained and bought a Turko-Persian carpet that was only partly large enough for the room. The walls we re-papered, so as to tone them down to the general stiffness, and we had the ceiling colored sage-green, which would be in admirable keeping, the decorating man said.

We didn't like this room, but we thought we would try and learn to like it. The fault was in ourselves perhaps. High art in furniture was something we ought to understand and ought to like. We would do both if we could.

But we soon saw that one reason why we did not like our sitting-room was the great dissimilarity between it and the rest of the house. To come from our comfortable bedroom, or our handsome, bright and softly furnished parlor, or our cheerful dining-room, into this severe and middle-aged sitting-room was too great a rise (or fall) for our perceptions. The strain or the shock was injurious to us. So we determined to strike another blow in the cause of consistency. We would furnish our whole house in the Eastlake style.

Fortunately, my wife's brother had recently married, and had bought a house about a quarter of a mile from our place. He had, so far, purchased but little furniture, and when we refurnished our sitting-room, he took the old furniture at a moderate price, for which I was very glad, for I had no place to put it. I call it "old" furniture to distinguish it from the new; but