"Well, we can't fix it up ourselves. We'll have to get one of Broxby's men to come in." "It will look awfully well," said Julia, "and it will screen off that part of the room. Maudie," she went on, breaking off sharp as a new idea struck her, "what on earth were we thinking of? We ought to have had a window seat." "That would have been a good idea--I wonder we never thought of it," Maudie cried. "Well, we can't now," said Julia in a very matter-of-fact tone, "because we haven't any money left. As it is, I don't believe thirty pounds will cover all we spent yesterday." "Neither do I, for when the blinds come you'll find they will be ever so much dearer than we bargained for. Shall we stand this tall bamboo thing for plants here?" "Yes--just in front of where the reed and bead curtain is to go. Well, then, since we haven't a window seat," Julia went on, "we must put one of the big wicker chairs there." "But who's going to sit there alone?" "Oh, we can put a small occasional chair beside it. The man can sit on that." "And a table?" "Yes--oh yes, I should put a table for their tea-cups. Well, then, when the piano comes--and by-the-bye don't forget we have to go up to-day and choose it--when the piano comes, what do you say to standing it out here?" "It would not look bad." "And this wicker chair like that--a little table there--" "Oh, it will be exquisite! There won't be another room in the Park like it." "And there are all these things, Julia," said Maudie, looking down upon a great dust-sheet on which were spread the rest of their many purchases. "I don't know where we shall put everything. All these little knick-knacks and odds and ends, they are awfully quaint and funny and pretty, but I'm sure I don't know what we are to do with them. Here, you have got the eye; you must say just where they are to go." And Julia, having the eye, did say where they were to go; in fact, with her own energetic hands she spread them about the room--crawling beetles, grinning devils, spotted cats with exaggerated green eyes, odds and ends of pottery, glass and porcelain. "Do you think we need have that over-mantel enameled?" she asked Maudie at last. "No, I should have it stained black--ebonized, that's the word," said Maudie, looking round. "As it is, the room is too new, too ornate, too dazzlingly modern. There isn't a touch of shadow in it anywhere--it's like a face without any eyelashes." CHAPTER XI AMBITIONS Many people look upon mental blindness as they do upon physical blindness--as a terrible affliction. Yet, when the mentally blind suddenly see, their condition is not usually improved thereby.