PEOPLE who love light are often shy of the increasing fashion of colouring the walls, ceilings, and floors of rooms. They say not untruly that in London there is too little light for us to dispense with any, and that all colouring which tends to darken the rooms is a mistake in a town. But it seems to me that these people confuse the meaning of light and brightness. Mere pallor is not light-giving - -a room papered, ceiled, and furnished with white would offer us no more advantages during one of the rich brown fogs of our dear native isle than one coloured with however deep a crimson or purple. If the windows are small and blocked by adjoining walls, the internal reflection of slate-coloured skies (and remember that white is not white in a room, it is every tint of grey, through shadow and dirt) will not make the atmosphere more luminous; while a room furnished tastefully with bright and rich colours, a good many mirrors, and bright objects, such as china, brass, and silver, really does refract light by contrast and by reflection.