First of all, there was a difficulty about the paper. After a week's delay, various samples of paper were submitted to them, papers that were marvellously cheap, marvellously dainty. The choice being left entirely to the girls, it fell upon one at two-and-four the piece. It was an elegant paper; stripes of white satin alternated with a wide white rib, upon which were flung at regular intervals delicate bouquets of banksia roses and violets. The ribbon which tied each bouquet and meandered on to the next was of the most delicate blue. The ceiling was of embossed white satin (apparently), and the frieze, which was rather deep, was composed of long festoons of the tiny roses caught at intervals with bunches of violets. Oh, it was a lovely paper! But they had to wait for it. For some occult reason, best known to the decorator who had undertaken the work of transforming that particular room at Ye Dene--which, by-the-bye, the girls determined to christen the _parloir_--that particular paper was out of stock. Impatient Julia suggested that they should choose another one, but the decorator blandly informed her that it was such a favorite with fashionable people in the West End that the manufacturers were reprinting, and he expected the consignment for their room--which he had already ordered--to arrive at any moment. And the days went by after the manner of days when there is a little house-decorating on hand. The decorator suggested that they could get on with the rest of the work, so on a duly-appointed day several gentlemen, dressed in lily-white garments, arrived and began to work their will upon the empty room. They swept the chimney--not the lily-white gentlemen, but a black one who seemed to be on friendly terms with them; they tore off the existing paper and they washed the ceiling, and then they went away and thought about things. They thought about things for several days, until at last the Whittaker girls hied them to the head office and made representation to the master of the business. Then they came and papered half the ceiling. "How lovely it looks, doesn't it?" said Maudie to Julia. "It would look lovelier if it were all done. I expect we shall have to go and fetch them to paper the other half." It was quite true. But still, bit by bit, the room progressed towards a thing of beauty, and at length, after a period of about five weeks, the foreman in charge of the work announced in a tone of triumph that they had come to bid the household at Ye Dene adieu. He didn't put it in those words, my reader, but that was his meaning. "I am sure we are very much obliged to you," said Julia. "You have been a very long time about it."