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The whiteness of it, given back by the ceiling and pale paneling of walls of the Long-Gallery, notwithstanding the generous fires burning in the two ornate, high-ranging chimney-places, produced, as the day waned, an effect of rather stark cheerlessness in the great room. This was at once in unison with Richard's somewhat bleak humour, and calculated to increase the famine of it.

"There was a terrible storm in February but can you really keep a secret?" and then, as he nodded his head seriously, she went on. "It blew down a narrow piece of the paneling in the long gallery it is next to my room, you know and I heard the noise in the night and lit a candle and went to see. Some of the window panes are broken, so it is very blustery there in storms.

"My dear, this is Cyril." Prescott shook hands with the lady on the car platform, and then looked past her in confused surprise. A girl stood in the vestibule, clad in garments of pale lilac tint which fell about her figure in long sweeping lines, emphasizing its fine contour against the dark brown paneling.

The floors with their wide boards were simply scrubbed, waxed, and left in the natural tone taken on by old wood in the course of a hundred and fifty years. All trim and paneling were painted a soft apple green, and walls and ceilings throughout were calcimined a deep cream color. Curtains of unbleached muslin were hung at the small, many-paned windows.

If any passer-by during the day were curious enough to peep into the two rooms forming this little dwelling, he could see nothing; for only under the sun of July could he discern, in the second room, two beds hung with green serge, placed side by side under the paneling of an old-fashioned alcove; but in the afternoon, by about three o'clock, when the candles were lighted, through the pane of the first room an old woman might be seen sitting on a stool by the fireplace, where she nursed the fire in a brazier, to simmer a stew, such as porters' wives are expert in.

In a great room with a beamed ceiling and oak paneled walls a painted fresco or a frieze of tapestry or some fine fabric is a very fine thing, especially if it has a lot of primitive red and blue and gold in it, but in simple rooms beware! Lately there has been a great revival of interest in wood paneling.

But I will not consent to anyone knowing of this staircase. That would destroy something which I could never recover. We must pretend we have found it in the long gallery; there is a recess in the paneling which no one knows of but I, and there we can put it and find it again. It will be quite safe. Shall we leave it there, Cheiron, until we come back from abroad?

The woman who cannot afford such expensive simplicity might model a dining-room on this same plan and accomplish a beautiful room at reasonable expense. Paneled walls are always possible; if you can't afford wood paneling, paint the plastered wall white or cream and break it into panels by using a narrow molding of wood.

I pulled up the blinds and examined the fastenings of the several windows. Attracted by the fall of a particle of dust, I leaned forward and looked up the blackness of the wide chimney. Then, trying to preserve my scientific attitude of mind, I walked round and began tapping the oak paneling for any secret opening, but I desisted before reaching the alcove. I saw my face in a mirror white.

Now he glanced familiarly at its white paneling, its sconces like silver candlesticks, the inevitable davenport inevitably backed by an amethyst-shaded piano lamp and a table crowded with silver boxes and picture-frames. He liked the winsomeness of light upon velvet and polished wood. It was not the drawing-room but the kitchen that dismayed him.