I spoke as if we were old friends. I spoke as if it were the most natural thing in the world for a young woman to accompany a young man to his house and pick out paint for him. I spoke, also, as if I had never cursed the prospect of petticoats that advise. So soon can one pair of eyes undo our prejudices, and so easily are the conventions forgotten, in the natural life of the country--at least by such persons as never were much bothered by them, anyhow! Evidently they had never greatly troubled Miss Goodwin, or she was not disposed to let them trouble her now, for ten minutes later we went down the road together, and found the painters already unloading their wagon. The reliable Hard Cider, true to his word, had procured them for me, which, as I afterward have discovered, was something of a feat in Bentford, where promises are more common than fulfilment. "It seems a pity to paint the outside of the house," said Miss Goodwin; "it's such a lovely weathered gray now. What colour is it going to be?" "No colour," said I. "White, with green blinds, of course. But the inside will be done first." We entered, with the boss painter, and went into the south room, which had already become the natural centre of the house. "Now," said I, "I'm not going to paper any rooms if I can help it. I want the walls calcimined. They look pretty sound to me, barring some places where you'll have to patch the plaster. Can it be done?" The painter walked about the room carefully, then examined the hall, the north room, and the dining-room, while the girl and I followed him. "Sure," he said. "All right; then I want this room done first, as I'm anxious to get my books unpacked and my desk set up. Now, what colour shall it be?" I turned toward Miss Goodwin as I spoke. She shook her head. "I'm not going to say a word," she answered. "This is your room." "I suppose you want the woodwork white?" the painter suggested. "Those old mantels, for instance." "Cream white, not dead white," said I. "Wait a minute." I ran to the shed and brought back two more of my pictures, an etching by Cameron which our professor of fine arts had once given me, and an oil painting acquired in a moment of rash expenditure several years before--the long line of Beacon Street houses across the Charles with the church spires rising here and there, and to the left Beacon Hill piling up to the golden dome of the State House. "Now," said I, "the walls have got to set off both these pictures, and books besides. They've got to be neutral. I want a greenish, brownish, yellowish olive, with the old beam in the centre of the ceiling in the same key, only a bit darker." The girl and the painter both laughed. "You are so definite," said she. "But I want an indefinite tint," I replied. Again she laughed, though the painter looked puzzled. "I'll get my colours," he said. He mixed what he considered an olive tint, and laid a streak of it on the plaster. "Too green," said I.