"Oh, what a pretty hall!" cried Mrs. Robeson, with enthusiasm. "How lucky that the vandals who made the house over didn't lay their desecrating hands on that staircase."
"The hall looks gloomy to me," said Mrs. Carey, with a disapproving glance at the walls.
"Of course--with that dingy brown paper and the woodwork stained that hideous imitation of oak. You can scrape all that off, paint it white, put on a warm, rich paper, restore your fanlight, and you'll have a particularly attractive hall."
"I wish I could see things that are not visible, as you seem to be able to," sighed Judith, looking unconvinced. "I never did like a long, straight staircase like that. And there's not room to make a turn."
"You don't want to, do you? It's so wide and low it doesn't need to turn, and the posts and rails are extremely good. How about this front room?"
She stood in the center of the front room, and the two men, watching her vivid face as it glowed above her furs, noting the capable, womanly way she had of looking at the best side of everything and discerning in a flash of imagination and intuition what could be done with unpromising material, appreciated her with that full masculine appreciation which it is so well worth the trouble of any woman to win.
Judith was not blind; she saw little by little as Juliet went from room to room--seizing in each upon its possibilities, ignoring its poorer features except to suggest their betterment, giving her whole-hearted, friendly counsel in a way which continually took the prospective homemakers into consideration--that she herself was losing something immeasurably valuable in not attempting to cultivate these same winning characteristics. And in the same breath Judith was forced to admit to herself that she did not know how to begin.
"There is really a very pretty view from the dining-room," she said, as a first effort at seeing something to admire. Both Juliet and Anthony agreed to this statement with a cordiality which came very near suggesting that it was a relief to find Mrs. Carey on the optimistic side of the discussion even in this small detail. As for Carey, he looked so surprised and grateful that Judith's heart smote her with a vigour to which she was unaccustomed.