"Well, that was rather a nice stand we saw up at Derry & Tom's the other day, wasn't it, with three sticks of bamboo arranged so as to hold a pot in the middle? Enamelled white it would be rather fetching, particularly if we had a nice trailing plant in it. Then we've got to get a fender; and they've got some lovely basket chairs at Barker's, I know they have; and I saw some tables at two-and-eleven in a shop down the High Street--I don't know what the name is. Oh, we shall find it easy enough; you can do a good deal at furnishing a room when you can get a table for two-and-eleven." "Yes, I daresay you're right. You've got a wonderful headpiece, Ju. Then, I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll get our room papered and painted, and then we'll have the floor done up--that's all quite plain sailing--and then we shall be better able to decide whether we'll have a small square of carpet or two or three rugs. We needn't have very expensive ones; it isn't as if we had got a lot of boys to come clumping about with muddy boots, is it?" "No, there's something in that. And I'll tell you what, Maudie--if we have chintz for the curtains, we could have chintz covers for the big old couch and the large armchair that we had in the room from the beginning. One thing is very certain," Julia continued impressively, "that we shall have to weigh every penny before we spend it." CHAPTER IX THE GIRLS' DOMAIN We learn most through our mistakes. You know what the British workman is. Believe me, that the particular specimen of the British workman who haunts Northampton Park has no fewer sins than his fellow who inhabits the heart of London. The days dragged on, dragged on, dragged on. Oh, that lovely sitting-room of Maudie and Julia Whittaker's imagination, day by day it seemed as if it was receding further and further into the Never-Never-Land.