OUR SENTIMENTAL GARDEN 



whole little rambling up-and-down dwelling-place thus pro- 

 duced has been boldly distempered white within from 

 roof to kitchen. The round black oak beams are delightful 

 in these little white rooms, and the pretty, blue-eyed, still 

 youthful spinster who owns them has been content with a 

 short pair of clear white muslin curtains in every window / 

 not, be it understood, the London bedroom kind that cuts 

 across the pane <an abomination difficult to avoid in 

 towns), but proper curtains hanging over the recess. 

 Nothing more suitable could be devised, and it took a 

 "real lady/' in the sense of Hans Andersen's "Real 

 Princess/ 7 to be content with such fresh simplicity. But 

 attractive as her furnishing is, and full of genuinely beau- 

 tiful things, there our tastes slightly diverged. 

 The largest sitting-room has a set of black lacquer fur- 

 niture inlaid with vivid mother-of-pearl/ it is deliciously 

 gay in this gay cottage parlour, and certainly no one who 

 possessed these early Victorian treasures could bear to 

 put them on one side. We think if we had been the lucky 

 owner, however, we would have eschewed coupling them 

 with velvet or, indeed, brought velvet at all under those 

 weather-beaten tiles. The mistress of the Villino had a 

 visiona daring vision of printed linen with scarlet cherries 

 and impossible birds pecking at them / something with a 

 true Jacobean angularity in it, to link the centuries to- 

 gether, and an uncompromising vividness of tint. That for 

 cushions and sofa-covers. On the floor then, no bright 

 carpet would be admitted. We should have enamelled 

 that floor white, and cast a few rugs down on it, with no 

 more colours in them than faint lemons and greys or 

 creams. 

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