The old Wray house had always been painted white, with green blinds,
as were most of our village houses; now it was painted red, with
blinds of a darker shade. When Louisa and I saw its bright walls
through the budding trees we were somewhat surprised, but thought it
might look rather pretty when we became accustomed to it. Very few of
the neighbors agreed with us, however; they had been so used to
seeing the walls of their dwellings white that this startled them
almost as much as a change of color in their own faces would have
done.

"We might as well set up for red Injuns and done with it," said Mrs.
Gregg one afternoon at the sewing circle. "What anybody can want
anything any prettier than a neat white house with green blinds for,
is beyond me."

Every month during the winter a letter had come to our literary
society in care of the secretary, who was my sister-in-law, Louisa
Field. Louisa was always secretary because she was a school-teacher
and was thought to have her hand in at that sort of work. Mrs.
Jameson wrote a very kind, if it was a somewhat patronizing, sort of
letter. She extended to us her very best wishes for our improvement
and the widening of our spheres, and made numerous suggestions
which she judged calculated to advance us in those respects. She
recommended selections from Robert Browning to be read at our
meetings, and she sent us some copies of explanatory and critical
essays to be used in connection with them. She also in March sent
us a copy of another lecture about the modern drama which she had
herself written and delivered before her current literature club.
With that she sent us some works of Ibsen and the Belgian writer,
Maeterlinck, with the recommendation that we devote ourselves to the