He added something and tried again. "Too gray," said Miss Goodwin, forgetful, and then quickly supplemented, "isn't it?" He added something else. "Too brown," said I. Once more he patiently mixed. "Too muddy coloured," I corrected. "It must be fun to be a painter," said the girl. "Oh, we get used to it," said he. "Try a little yellow," I suggested. "I want that tint warmed up a trifle." He did so, and something emerged which looked right to me. "That's a queer olive, though," said the girl. "Well, it's a greenish, brownish, yellowish olive, isn't it?" I replied. "That's what I asked for! Do the walls in this colour, and paint the woodwork, mantels, and the panels over them and the bookcase and settles a creamy white, with a creamy white on the ceiling, and oil up this old floor and stain the strip of new boards where the partition was, and my room is ready!" We went into the little hall, where the front door stood open, and we could see Hard on a ladder mending the beautiful carved door cap outside. "This hall the same colour," said I, "with the rails of the baluster in the cream white of the trim." We went into the northeast room and the dining-room behind it. "Same colour here?" asked the painter. I was about to answer yes, when Miss Goodwin spoke. "I should think you'd want these rooms lighter in colour," she said, "as they face the north." "The lady's right," said the painter. "They always are," I smiled. "You two fix up the colour for this room, then. We can decide on the other rooms after these downstairs are done." "No," cried the girl, "I won't do anything of the kind! You might not like what I picked." "Incredible!" said I. "I've really got to get to work outside now." And I ran off, leaving her looking a little angrily, I thought, after me. I was so impatient to see how my lawn was going to look that I went to the shed to hunt up a dummy sundial post which I could set up and mark off my beds around it, getting them manured for planting. At first I could find nothing, except some old logs, but looking up presently into a loft under the eaves, I saw the dusty end of what looked like a Doric pillar poking out. I scrambled up and pulled forth, to my joy, a wooden pillar about nine feet long, in excellent preservation. How it got there, I had no idea. The dust had evidently accumulated on it for years. It had once been painted white. I dragged the heavy column down, and ran to get Hard Cider. He grunted. "All yer side porch pillars wuz them kind when I wuz a boy," he said. "Old man Noble's fust wife didn't like the porch--thought it kept light out o' the kitchen, an' hed it took down. His second wife hed it put back, but some o' the columns hed got lost, or burnt up, I reckon, so's they put it back with them square posts yer hev now. I reckon that column's nigh on a century old."