from now." He went on to plan the rest of the house, and he showed himself such a master in regard to all the practical details that Mrs. Lapham began to feel a motherly affection for the young man, and her husband could not deny in his heart that the fellow seemed to understand his business. He stopped walking about the room, as he had begun to do when the architect and Mrs. Lapham entered into the particulars of closets, drainage, kitchen arrangements, and all that, and came back to the table.  "I presume," he said, "you'll have the drawing-room finished in black walnut?" 

 "Well, yes," replied the architect, "if you like. But some less expensive wood can be made just as effective with paint. Of course you can paint black walnut too." 

 "Paint it?" gasped the Colonel. 

 "Yes," said the architect quietly.  "White, or a little off white." 

 Lapham dropped the plan he had picked up from the table. His wife made a little move toward him of consolation or support. 

 "Of course," resumed the architect, "I know there has been a great craze for black walnut. But it's an ugly wood; and for a drawing-room there is really nothing like white paint. We should want to introduce a little gold here and there. Perhaps we might run a painted frieze round under the cornice--garlands of roses on a gold ground; it would tell wonderfully in a white room." 

 The Colonel returned less courageously to the charge.  "I presume you'll want Eastlake mantel-shelves and tiles?" He meant this for a sarcastic thrust at a prevailing foible of the profession. 

 "Well, no," gently answered the architect.  "I was thinking perhaps a white marble chimney-piece, treated in the refined Empire style, would be the thing for that room." 

 "White marble!" exclaimed the Colonel.  "I thought that had gone out long ago." 

 "Really beautiful things can't go out. They may disappear for a little while, but they must come back. It's only the ugly things that stay out after they've had their day." 

 Lapham could only venture very modestly, "Hard-wood floors?" 

 "In the music-room, of course," consented the architect. 

 "And in the drawing-room?" 

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