she would not have gay colors to put them out of countenance; for
even if she re-covered them, she said they should have the same old
homey complexion. So she chose a fair, soft buff, with a pattern of
brown leaves, for her parlor paper; Mrs. Ledwith, meanwhile,
plunging headlong into glories of crimson and garnet and gold.
Agatha had her blush pink, in panels, with heart-of-rose borders,
set on with delicate gilt beadings; you would have thought she was
going to put herself up, in a fancy-box, like a French _mouchoir_ or
a _bonbon_.

"Why _don't_ you put your old brown things all together in an
up-stairs room, and call it Mile Hill? You could keep it for old
times' sake, and sit there mornings; the house is big enough; and
then have furniture like other people's in the parlor?"

"You see it wouldn't be _me_." said Mrs. Ripwinkley, simply.

"They keep saying it 'looks,' and 'it looks,'" said Diana to her
mother, at home. "Why must everything _look_ somehow?"

"And every_body_, too," said Hazel. "Why, when we meet any one in
the street that Agatha and Florence know, the minute they have gone
by they say, 'She didn't look well to-day,' or, 'How pretty she did
look in that new hat!' And after the great party they went to at
that Miss Hitchler's, they never told a word about it except how
girls 'looked.' I wonder what they _did_, or where the good time
was. Seems to me people ain't living,--they are only just looking;
or _is_ this the same old Boston that you told about, and where are
the real folks, mother?"