But the living room was the crown of all, wide and pleasant and many-windowed, with its stone fireplace, wide mantel, adorned with a quaint old pair of brass candlesticks that had belonged to the grandmother; the walls covered with pale-yellow felt-paper like soft sunshine; the floor planed down to the natural wood, oiled and treated with shellac; and the old woolen rugs in two tones of gray, which used to be bedroom rugs when Cornelia was a baby, washed and spread about in comfortable places; it no more resembled the stuffy, dark little place they used to call a “parlor” than day resembles night. Soft white sheer curtains veiled the windows everywhere, with over-curtains of yellow cotton crêpe; and the sunshine seemed to have taken up its abode in that room even on dark days when there was no sun to be seen. It was as if it had stayed behind from the last sunshiny day, so bright and cheerful was the glow. The little “bay” was simply overflowing with ferns the children had brought from the woods, set in superfluous yellow and gray bowls from the kitchen accumulation. Harry ran extra errands after hours, and saved enough to buy the yellowest, throatiest canary the city afforded, in a big wicker cage to hang in the window. Cretonne covers in soft gray tones covered the shabby old chairs and couch, and Carey and his father spent hours with pumice-stone and oil, polishing away at the piano, the bookcase, and the one small mahogany table that was left, while Cornelia did wonderful things in the way of artistic shades for little electric lamps that Carey rigged up in odd, unexpected corners, made out of all sorts of queer things; an old pewter sugar-bowl, this with a shade of silver lace lined with yellow, a relic of some college costume; a tall gray jug with queer blue Chinese figures on it that had been among the kitchen junk for years, this with a dull blue shade; a bright yellow vase with a butterfly-yellow shade; and a fat green jar with willow basket-work around it on which Cornelia put a shade of soft green, with some old brown lace over it. The room was really wonderful when it was done, with two or three pictures hung in just the right spot, and some photographs and magazines thrown comfortably about. Really one could not imagine a pleasanter or more artistic room, not if one had thousands to spend. The first evening it was all complete the family just sat down and enjoyed themselves in it, talking over each achievement of cushion or curtain or wall as a great connoisseur might have looked over his newly acquired collection and gloated over each specimen with delight.