CONVERTING A COTTAGE 



on top of one's head, for bedrooms the size of a bath- 

 towel, and a general feeling of having one foot on the 

 hearth and another in the passage. We thought the new- 

 comers had shown more taste outside, and came to the 

 conclusion that some one else's taste ruled in the garden, 

 but that they had allowed their own ideas free scope 

 indoors. These ideas were monotonous. The parlour 

 that gave on the little orchard had a paper all over green 

 parrots / the best bedroom upstairs had a paper all over 

 blue parrots / and the second best bedroom was adorned 

 with terra-cotta parrots. The only chance for a con- 

 glomeration of rooms so hopelessly low and contracted, 

 would have been a plain distemper of no tint deeper than 

 cream, or at the outside butter colour. Then the old 

 beams would have had a chance, and one might have felt 

 able to draw one's breath. 



<Fancy waking in the morning to the dance of all the little 

 parrots on top of one's eyelids !> 



Then, out of a small space, the shapes of trees and 

 flower-beds beyond come upon the vision with no sense of 

 effect if the space within is tormented. Neither can any- 

 one have any proper appreciation of the joy of a bunch 

 of flowers, or a vase of spreading boughs, who has not 

 set them against plain walls where their shadows have 

 play. 



Another little house near hereset down in the valley 

 this, on the edge of a hamlet, overlooking a wide pondhas 

 been to our thinking more successfully dealt with. Three 

 very old cottages have been knocked into one, and the 



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