" He thought "rough-plastered walls, where
you could lay an' count the spots where the roof leaked, was the most
entertainin' in sickness." Rose had longed for the lovely pattern, but had
sided dutifully with the prudent majority, so that it was with a feeling of
unauthorized and illegitimate joy that Stephen papered the room at night, a
few strips at a time.
On the third evening, when he had removed all signs of his work, he lighted
two kerosene lamps and two candles, finding the effect, under this
illumination, almost too brilliant and beautiful for belief. Rose should never
see it now, he determined, until the furniture was in place. They had already
chosen the kitchen and bedroom things, though they would not be needed for
some months; but the rest was to wait until summer, when there would be the
hay-money to spend.
Stephen did not go back to the River Farm till one o'clock that night; the
pink bedroom held him in fetters too powerful to break. It looked like the
garden of Eden, he thought. To be sure, it was only fifteen feet square; Eden
might have been a little larger, possibly, but otherwise the pink bedroom had
every advantage. The pattern of roses growing on a trellis was brighter than
any flower-bed in June; and the border--well, if the border had been five
dollars a foot Stephen would not have grudged the money when he saw the twenty
running yards of rosy bloom rioting under the white ceiling.
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