From Kitchen to Garret: Hints for young householders

I could write pages about fires, I am so certain that in England nothing is saved by scrimping the coal, but I must not dwell upon this subject. I must pass on to the washing-stands, of which here are two drawings from Mr. Smee’s designs, and which I consider the very perfection of stands. I prefer the larger one of the two, not because I could for one moment contemplate the odious notion of a double washing apparatus, but because the smaller one does not seem to me to have room for sponge-dish and all the etceteras one requires; but, of course, if the room were a small one, the single washing-stand would be best, because in that case space would be an object, and by placing a long painted shelf, or one of those nice little hanging sets of shelves, half cupboard, half bookcase, over it, we could obtain a place to put extra articles on. These washing-stands in the best materials come to 5l. 5s. each. The drawing, I think, will need but small explanation from me, as it will show exactly the proper style for a washing-stand; but I should like my readers to notice that the high-tiled back prevents the wall being spoiled, and does away with the idea of a ‘splasher’ being required, that the towels are to be hung on the round rails provided for them, and that the deep cupboards are especially to be commended, doing away as they do with any necessity for an extra piece of furniture, and they can also be used for bottles of medicine, Angelina’s private duster, which she should keep in every room, cardboard boxes, and other trifles that are too useful to throw away and yet require to be hidden from sight.

There is no doubt in my mind that the Beaufort ware sold by Maple is the nicest and prettiest for bedroom use. It is pure white, and a most charming shape. The jug has a double lip, and the handles are in the centre, like a basket, simulating a twisted rope. The basin &c. have all handles and embellishments of the same rope-like design, and the cost is 17s. 6d. The ware is most excellent, and though much cheaper ware is, of course, to be procured, pretty blue and white sets being purchasable at 3s. 11½d., my white set exists triumphantly, after eleven years’ wear and two moves, while I have bought more cheap sets for those all-devouring locusts the boys and the maids than I care to think about. I am convinced, therefore, that very cheap china for bedroom use is a mistake, for good ware stands rough usage much better, and therefore is cheaper in the end.

It is well, too, to buy the ware as much alike as possible for two or even three rooms, as nothing is so difficult to match as this. Before I became in the least au fait at these small contrivances that save so much, I had quite a regiment of ewerless basins and basinless ewers that had accumulated because I found it impossible to get them matched, and having them made was almost, nay quite, as costly as a new set. Of course, these were gradually used up, and not very gradually either, alas! by the servants; but they were ever so much too good for their heedless clutches, and I should have been saved a great deal had I had the sense to buy two sets alike, instead of exercising my taste by seeing how many different ones I could possess myself of.

Ware now is so extremely cheap that it is perhaps not of such vital consequence as it used to be to do this; still, as I had the other day to give 4s. for a jug to match a basin belonging to a set the whole of which cost only 5s., I think it is still worth mentioning, as it may save Angelina something, and every shilling is often a consideration to young beginners. The blue and white ware at about 5s. a set is good enough for any room, but, of course, Maple’s white Beaufort ware is much prettier; and Mortlock, of Oxford Street, has or had some artistic pale blue, yellow, and red sets that would be lovely in a room that was furnished entirely in one of these colours. The soap-dish &c. are included in the cheap prices, but not a sponge dish. This should always be bought. Not only does it save the sponge from becoming sticky and unpleasant, but it saves the wall and floor from those detestable continuous dribbles of water that are the outcome of a sponge-basket, that may be all very well in theory, but is worse than useless in practice. A sponge-dish has all proper drainage, and may be more expensive at first, but, like a great many other expensive things, saves the whole of its cost in the long run.

The covers of the soap and toothbrush dishes should never be left on; the soap lasts ever so much longer than when it is shut up, and, of course, the veriest ignoramus knows the effect on one’s toothbrush if it is kept covered over. I infinitely prefer to have a tall species of spill-holder or a rack for tooth and nail brushes, as this allows them to drain; and for servants’ bedrooms one can buy iron things at 6½d. to hold the soap and two toothbrushes as well. These are not bad for schoolboys’ rooms, as they are not ugly, but are not suitable for grown-up people’s rooms, who are supposed reasonably to take care of their things; but with the Beaufort ware the ordinary dish for toothbrushes is sent, and is therefore used, but without the cover.

I always keep on my washing-stand one of Perry’s invaluable sixpenny sticks of ink-eraser. I sometimes ink my fingers dreadfully, but nothing is too bad for Perry, whose delightful stick comes into use, and cleans away the stains directly. This, too, must not be put into confinement, as it becomes soft and melts away rapidly if it is.

For the tooth-water and glass, I most thoroughly recommend the charming little sets we buy at Douglas’s glass-shop in Piccadilly. For 1s. 6d., 2s., and even less (I have bought a green set there for 9d.), one buys the prettiest possible glass jugs and glasses, and they are ever so much nicer than the old-fashioned glass water-bottles and tumblers; they are charming to look at, and far more easily kept clean. There are blue, red, green, and shades of opal; and the gas-globes should match. The best gas-globes are the tinted green globes, pinched in here and there in folds, which are 1s. 4½d. at Whiteley’s, and 3s. and 4s. at any other shop—why, I don’t know. The opal glasses are prettier, but then they are dearer. A dozen towels should be allowed to each washing-stand: four a week, or even three, are enough for most people. One big Turkish towel is indispensable for the bath, and a clean towel should be always on the second rail ready for the visitor, for whom we have already provided the hairbrush.

To every room should be apportioned a hot-water jug or can. There are none so good as the charming brass cans at 7s. 6d. The painted ones soon become shabby, and always smell of paint directly the hot water is put in; and not at all a bad plan is to have a brass label chained to the handle of the can, with the room’s name on to which the can belongs. Cheaper brass cans can be had, but they hold less water, and as they have no cover the water very soon becomes cold. A larger oak-painted can should be provided for the housemaid. This she should use for refilling the ewers, and to bring larger quantities of water if a foot-bath is required in one’s own room; but the foot-bath and also the slop-pails should be all of white china, and intense cleanliness should be insisted on, especially for the last-named articles, which never, even in the smallest establishment, should be made of anything save earthenware. These china ones cost 4s. 9d., and have a basket-work handle and a china cover. They should be scalded out every day with hot water and a little chloride of lime, chloride of lime being kept in any separate place, ready for use where there are any drains.

Before passing to the dressing-room, which should open, if possible, out of the bedroom, there are still one or two more trifles that can be mentioned in connection with it, as on trifles after all depend a great deal of our comfort, more especially in the upstairs department, and a sleepless night might often be prevented were some of the commonest precautions taken to insure rest.

One thing no dweller in the ordinary suburban residence should be without, and that is a wedge of wood attached to a brass chain to each window, ready to wedge the window closely together should a storm suddenly arise in the night. Who has not risen irate at the dismal rattling, and crammed in anything—toothbrush, comb, or what not—sacrificing often enough one or the other in one’s rage at not being able in a moment to put a stop to this intolerable nuisance? Now a wedge ready to hand, nailed to the window by its chain, so that it cannot be lost or mislaid, obviates all this, and the window is secured at once and rest is insured simply by a little precaution and forethought. I believe that Whiteley keeps these wedges, but I used to buy mine of a clergyman in Dorset, who made them beautifully, and sold them in bunches in aid of the fund for restoring his church, and so popular were they that he made quite a nice little sum by their sale; but then Dorset is a very windy county, and I think the windows there rattle more than anywhere else.

Another thing should be secured, and that is a matchbox nailed to the wall, close by the bed, and the servant should be strictly forbidden ever to take the matches from one room to another; there should be a match-box nailed on in each room and in the passages, and Angelina should see herself that matches are never lacking there. I buy Bryant and May’s boxes, but not their matches, as they are expensive, but I always have tiny boxes of Swedish matches at 5s. the gross, a gross lasting me considerably over a year; naturally I keep them locked in a store cupboard, in a room where there is sufficient warmth to keep them dry, and the maids have to ask me for them when they are required. When I used Bryant and May’s matches and had them in as wanted from the grocer, I never spent less than 6d. and sometimes 1s. a week upon them, so I consider my present plan worth mentioning, for the save is really great, and in these small items much can be economised, if only one has a little knowledge and keeps one’s eyes open. But the matchboxes and wedges must be nailed on, or else they will disappear in the same extraordinary way pins and hair-pins always contrive to do. Then, in bedrooms and sitting-rooms alike, I have the most delightful tiny brass hooks on which I hang a hearth-brush, for I have an immense dislike to an untidy and dirty hearth. As my old nurse used to say, ‘These sort of things don’t eat anything,’ and a brush lasts five times as long if it have not to migrate from one room to another, and can instead have its own especial hook. You can buy ugly black hearth-brushes at 1s. 3d., but I always buy brass ones at 4s. 11½d. They last for years and years, and then can have new bristles added at the cost of 1s.; they look nice too, and are always to hand when wanted.

One of the principal things to remember all through these household arrangements surely is this: a place for everything, and everything in its place; time, temper, wear and tear of nerves, and servants being saved a thousand times over by this simple remedy. If the brush be in its place there is no need for Angelina to ring up tired Mary Jane to make a tidy hearth. The hot-water cans on their shelves in the bath-room, or in the pantry if there be no bath-room, allow of Angelina getting her own hot water if the maid be busy or out of the way, and so on through all the details of domesticity, which will only dovetail in a little house if this principle of tidiness and thought animates the mistress. And here let me beg that Angelina will resist with her might getting into the bad habit of putting her boots on and buttoning them on her nice cretonne chair covers. I mean the habit of putting the foot up on the chairs while she fastens the buttons. I once had a visitor staying with me who cut out a whole set of chair cushions in the month or six weeks she was with me; and I discovered she had brass tips to her heels, and these had cut out tiny holes all over the cushions, spoiling them utterly; all because she had acquired this very bad habit. If Angelina cannot button her boots without this action, she should take care never to put her heel on the chair; to keep to one for the process; and, if possible, to put down something, if only a scrap of paper, under the toe of the boot, which must soil the cushion, even if it do nothing worse.

I have in my time suffered so much from careless and inconsiderate visitors that I cannot help giving these little hints on which any newly married girl can act if she will. Example speaks louder than precept, and if Angelina scouts such actions herself, she influences her servants, and suggests to her visitors tidy habits, that may benefit her later on, if not on the first visit. I shall never forget one dreadful visitor I had—a visitor who was possessed of the damp, unpleasant hobby of searching in ditches and hedge-bottoms for clammy and awful things which she insisted on bringing home and investigating by the aid of a microscope. I should not have minded this one bit, if she had done it in a room we had, where the boys made messes, and that nothing could hurt; but I had just had my spare room done up, and the effect was so terrible I have never forgotten it to this day. It was such a pretty flowery room, too, that it deserves a word of description. The effect was purple and green, and the paper was guelder-roses and heliotrope—not at all a bad mixture of colour, remember, and one that lights up well; the paint was all the dull Japanese green varnished that is not arsenical; and that is very artistic, and by great good luck I found a charming French cretonne of the same style and almost the same pattern as the paper, and this I used as dado fixed with a dull green rail of ‘scantling,’ and as panels in the shutters and doors. I had a nice little brass bedstead, with a gold and white embroidered Liberty quilt trimmed round with ball fringe, and furniture, with gold, green, and blue and red tapestry covers on toilet, chest of drawers, and a new pincushion box covered with the same, and all trimmed with ball fringe. There was a nice new box-ottoman for hats and bonnets, a most useful possession for any one, especially if it be divided in two layers with a cheap tray, also covered with cretonne, new matting, and nice Liberty rugs on the floor, and several newly framed photographs on the walls; besides this there was a pretty table covered with plush, for a writing-table, duly furnished with blotter, inkstand, and wastepaper basket, &c.; a charming basket-chair, and two other chairs in pretty cretonnes, and odds and ends in the shape of ornaments. There were two gas brackets, so I did not have any candles in the room. I never have if I can help it; the servants are apt to light them and drop the grease about, so unless specially desired I never put candles anywhere, and I am more than thankful that in this case of which I am writing I did nothing of the kind, for my excellent housemaid came to me one morning when my friend was out ‘bog-trotting’—or whatever the word for the occupation is—and, with a face of horror, begged me to come into the spare room before Mrs. W. returned, as she really did not know how she was going to get it straight again.

Shall I ever forget my anguish! On the bed, on the top of the new quilt, were spread specimens of all the nastinesses she had collected; on the brass rail and hanging on the dado, on nails stuck in for the purpose, and from most of the picture-nails, were mounted ghastlinesses on sheets of paper that were drying in a fine breeze coming straight into the room, laden with any amount of September damp and mist; the oil from the microscope lamp was on every chair and every table, and a perfect regiment of muddy boots and bedraggled skirts, cast about everywhere, spoke volumes of the extent of Mrs. W.’s wardrobe, and her ingenuity in filling up every hole and corner of that new and once pretty room.

And all this was caused just by a little lack of thought and care for other people’s things, for, as I said before, we had, and generally have, a large unfurnished room, sacred to boys, where she could have done her worst and injured no one, for she might have nailed her nails and hung up specimens to her heart’s content, and only pleased the legitimate owners of that chamber. I also forgot to mention that on the newly painted mantelpiece was a row of bottles full of dirty water, all of which either leaked or else had been put down there, wet from the ditches from which they had been filled, and to find room for them all my ornaments had been dislodged and were missing. We found them afterwards in bits, more or less, at the bottom of the ottoman, the top of which was spoiled by being used as a ‘boot-rest’ for Mrs. W. when she either wished to button or unbutton those articles of attire. When she had left me I simply had to do that room at the cost of 5l. or 6l., which I did not want, naturally, to spend, but my friend has never been to stay with me again, and she never will. I have told this long story, which I did not mean to go in for when I began my chapter, to point out to Angelina another caution. When ‘things’ are once nice and in order they require incessant care, if Angelina has been carelessly brought up, and if she has not acquired really nice habits; but if she avoids messing and is duly careful, her possessions will last her years, and give very little trouble. One more thing to remember is that, unless the door be provided with a curtain suspended from one of Maple’s invaluable 7s. 9d. rods, nothing should induce Angelina to depend her dresses from crooks fixed into the doors. It spoils them, as they are exposed both to sun and dust, and the look of it is so unpleasantly suggestive of Bluebeard’s wives that this is a habit that cannot, I think, be too strongly condemned. Besides, I remember dresses being torn and spoiled by being shut into doors and then taken down without seeing they are shut in; which is an argument against hanging them there at all, even covered with a curtain. Still, in a small house and with a large amount of clothing, a door is sometimes very ‘handy’ as an overflow wardrobe, and then a curtain arranged as suggested above is a sine quâ non.

One need not go to very much expense about bedroom chairs. Old worn-out drawing-room occasional chairs can be made beautiful for bedroom use by painting them blue to match the suite with Aspinall’s hedge-sparrow’s-egg blue enamel paint; particularly if one buys cushions, which are sold, I believe, both at Maple’s and Whiteley’s very cheaply, for about 1s. 2d. These should be re-covered with odds and ends of Liberty’s Mysore cretonne; the yellow and white, blue and white, and terra-cotta and white being all admirable—with the particular shade of blue paint, I mean. The best bedroom chairs are these painted chairs, or else the black-framed Beaconsfield chairs, rush-seated, and also supplied with cushions in frilled cases, the cases being buttoned on so as to be easily removed for the wash, and the cushions supplied with tapes, so that they are fixed to the chairs, and neither move about when one is sitting upon them nor drop on when least expected.

There is no doubt that pictures should always be on a bedroom wall. Pictures and picture-frames are so cheap nowadays that some can generally be afforded even at first. Of course these gradually accumulate, and in years to come the walla will doubtless be decorated with photographs of the children at different stages; but Angelina’s wedding photographs will be useful at first, and I cannot imagine a nicer wedding present than some of the exquisite photographs from the old masters that one buys ready framed at a shop close to Regent Circus, the name of which I have forgotten, but which is between the Circus and the meeting hall of the Salvation Army. These are not at all expensive; for 10s. and 15s. each quite large and most beautiful photographs can be obtained, and Angelina would have a vast amount of pleasure out of 10l. spent judiciously on these lovely photographs for the adornment of her house, especially of her bedroom. These make admirable presents for young girls, who can none of them be taught too early to take a great pride in their bedrooms, and to accumulate there their own belongings in the way of pictures, books, and ornaments. I love to see a girl ‘house-proud,’ as the Germans say; and my own house, when I married first, was made habitable only because of the judicious manner in which my dear mother had impressed on me to take care of, and pride in, the many little sketches, engravings, and photographs I used to have given me. We were exceptionally lucky in that way, as of course we had a great many artistic friends; but still, all girls should remember they may have houses of their own, and always must have one room of their own, and should be taught to pride themselves on having pretty and artistic chambers sacred to their own use.

Naturally two sisters often have to occupy one room, but this need not alter the idea, and I would rather a girl cared for her room, and collected pictures, books, and china for that, than see her crave for ornaments and jewellery, which can give but very little pleasure as contrasted with pretty and delightfully artistic surroundings.

Angelina’s task of making her bedroom pretty will be so much lightened if she has begun collecting treasures as soon as she was promoted to a room to herself, that I may, perhaps, be forgiven if I impress this fad of mine on all my readers, young and old; for mothers of growing daughters can perhaps benefit by an idea that may be useful to them, and of which it is just possible they may not have thought themselves; and I should let (as I do let) my daughter begin her collection as soon as she is old enough to value having her very own things, even to the sheets, pillow-cases, and towels, which she can embroider herself, and to a small collection of silver and china and pictures, added to, on birthdays and at Christmas, with an eye to a house of her own some day; or even a couple of rooms, when she may end an honoured career of ‘old maidism,’ made all the lighter and pleasanter by the store of pleasant memories secured to her by her possessions, which thus serve a double duty, and are both artistic and useful too.

If Angelina cannot afford pictures in any way, she can, no doubt, afford brackets. These are very cheap indeed in carved wood (which can be painted to match the room), would hold a scrap of blue and white china, and can be made even more decorative if surrounded by a ‘trophy’ or artistic arrangement of the ever-useful Japanese fans, one of which should be covered with silk and plush, and made into a bed-pocket for handkerchief, watch, or keys, although I like my watch in evidence, as then one sees exactly what time it is, and if it is the hour to rise, or to put out the gas, if one indulges, as I do, in the fascinating but wrong habit of reading in bed. I have a long bookcase in my room, as shown in the drawing on page 72, and this is full of bound magazines to fall back upon, should my own book be exhausted before I feel inclined to go to sleep. Even if the windows are open the serge curtains should be drawn, I think, unless one requires to get up very early, as I do not believe the brain ever really rests if there be much light in the room. That is another objection to blinds; they are never dark enough. The serge curtains are cheaper, and keep out the strongest sunlight there is.

I do not think what are generically known as ‘short blinds’ ever look nice in any bedroom. I can remember, however, when to have white curtains there to match, or in some measure go with those in the rest of the house, was considered the height of reckless extravagance, and a sure index of the bad financial position of the person who was sinful enough to indulge in them!

Of course if we live with opposite neighbours’ eyes straight upon us we must cover our windows, or run the risk of being seen at our toilet; but even then we can curtain them by using the frequently advised double fixed rods, either covering the lower sash entirely with a full fluted blind of coloured Liberty muslin, or by draping the entire window—always the prettiest way of setting to work—with frilled muslin curtains meeting down the centre and almost covering the glass, at all events covering it completely if it be necessary to do so (see page 60). And now opinion on this subject has changed so much, we can afford to have our windows all look alike without exciting dismal prophecies from people who really know nothing at all about us.

Remember no house can possibly look pretty where white curtains are conspicuous by their absence, any more than a girl can look pretty if she has neither nice frilling or spotless collar and cuffs as a finish to her costume. And by white curtains I mean muslin curtains of almost any colour, with some white in them. Dark thin curtains are an abomination, I think. I once lived opposite some dark green muslin ones that made me always feel the owners were dirty people, although I knew quite well they were not. Muslin and guipure curtains, nicely made and fixed, are my pet curtains, and next to these come Liberty’s printed muslins and cheap artistic muslins, though I have seen soft-hued silks used to great advantage in town houses; but this is, I should think, far too expensive for us, modest beginners as we are. White Madras muslin is not economical, as it cannot be said to wash well. It shrinks, pulls crooked, and generally loses all its colour in a most distressing manner the first, and always the second, time it pays a visit to the laundress, and if we cannot have guipure and muslin we must fall back on plain or printed muslin only. Cretonne curtains for a bedroom must invariably be lined if no blinds are used; and a very good thing to do in a very sunny room is to put an inner lining of very dark green twill inside the cretonne lining, so that it shall not show, thus insuring the darkness that I consider so necessary in a sleeping-room, the brain, as I said before, refusing absolutely to rest if much light comes across the eyes, and this is why a bed should never face the window, as this insures light of some sort falling on the face of the sleeper.

To sum up briefly, one’s bedroom should be pretty, tasteful, and quiet, and should be as much thought about and kept as carefully as the grandest sitting-room we possess; and I may further mention, for those who cannot purchase Aspinall’s enamel in hedge-sparrow’s-egg blue, that a very decent substitute can be made from Prussian blue, middle Brunswick green, white lead, oil, and varnish, and just a little black paint or ochre to tone it all down. This must be mixed until the colour is precisely that of a hedge-sparrow’s egg or very old turquoise, and is very troublesome to get right; therefore the above receipt will only be really of use to those of my colonial readers who may not be able to obtain Mr. Aspinall’s invaluable enamels for home-decoration.

CHAPTER XII.

DRESSING-ROOM.

In the first place, there is a charming-looking wardrobe in ash. The top is embellished by a ledge, on which artistic pottery is meant to stand, but where at this present moment repose a microscope, a lamp, very grimy and full of dreadful-looking oil that no one may touch, several dusty piles of lectures and reports of divers societies, and on the plain space below are at least five paper bandboxes, containing old and dilapidated hats, all more or less suggestive of Noah’s ark and scarecrows; yet one and all far too precious to give away, and which no one dare touch, on pain of instant death.

One half of this wardrobe is lined with striped calico, against the dust, and is used for hanging up coats, dressing-gowns, &c., and where there is quite a crowd of the most hideous old coats, all too precious to part with—I can’t think why—and then on the other side there is a deep space sacred to trousers, and three deep drawers besides, for shirts and under-garments of all kinds. Now this is actually not sufficient accommodation, and I have other drawers in the bedroom itself, where stores of summer or winter raiment, as the case may be, repose; and the dress things are also in yet another place; but I do think it is rather a mistake to have so much space for spoiling coats by hanging them up, and I am thinking of having shelves put in in that division, and seeing if that will be any good at all, though, as it is so much easier to hang up a coat than to fold it up, I much fear there will be strenuous opposition to that plan—at least at the first.

A wardrobe is a necessity in a dressing-room—unless one is lucky enough to find a good deep cupboard there already—and they can be bought at all prices. The one described above was about 10l., and is certainly very pretty, but I am sure it is nothing like as useful or as well arranged as it ought to be, and I have one in the nursery, which is all drawers and shelves, that cost 4l. 10s., and is hideous, which I am thinking of having painted turquoise blue, and adding brass handles and substituting this for the ash one, which can go nicely into the spare room, where it will no longer be desecrated with all sorts of débris being placed where pretty china is meant to go. There is one piece of furniture, invented by Mr. Watts, of Grafton Street, Tottenham Court Road, W., which is, however, perfect for a dressing-room, and therefore deserves more than a word of mention.

It is a combination of dressing-table and washing-stand that is simply invaluable. A long glass starts on the right-hand side from three drawers, with a place for brushes and combs, while on the left is ample space for washing, with a high tiled back, and a species of shelf to hold bottles, glasses, &c. There is also a deep space under the marble shelf on which the jug and basin stand, meant for boots, and covered in with a cretonne curtain on a brass rod, and is altogether as charming, artistic-looking, and useful a piece of furniture as any one would wish; it costs 6l. 10s. in stained deal, is beautifully made, and would not only be useful in a dressing-room, but in a young girl’s room or any small place where there really is not sufficient accommodation for both washing-stand and toilet-table. I have narrow tapestry mats trimmed with ball fringe on the shelves, but I should not like to say how many have been wanted there, for men never can remember that wet sponges should be put in the sponge-dish and not on the new covers, or that brushes are best in the drawers intended for them, and not for sundry bits and scraps of paper, old soiled gloves, spoiled white ties, cartridges, fly-books, bits of gut, string, ‘objects’ for microscopes, and other nastinesses ‘too numerous to mention,’ as the auctioneers say when they have come to the end of their descriptive resources.

And, apropos of this, let me beg Angelina never to allow accumulations in either small or big drawers if she can possibly help it; nothing breeds moths or harbours dust like this, and I should advise her occasionally to brave Edwin’s wrath, and turn out on her own account, if he is obdurate, and will keep every scrap and shred of rubbish that has ever come into his possession, because he cannot believe a time will not come when the possession of a few inches of paper, string, or catgut will be of paramount importance to him, and when a store of old clothes will stand between him and utter and entire destitution of raiment.

Now, without emulating a silly little friend of mine, who was only saved by the difference of a pot of snowdrops from bartering her bridegroom’s best coat for a supply of flowers, with one of those engaging gentlemen who frequent the suburbs with a supply of blossoms, warranted to fade and die utterly within the space of twenty-four hours, I would strongly suggest a little dissimulation to Angelina, should Edwin prove the orthodox hoarder of old clothes that it appears to me, from judicious questioning, most men are.

Angelina should make a point of remembering the date of Edwin’s coats, and should mark them in an invisible place (on the lining of the inside of the sleeve is the best) with the date of the purchase; and with this triumphant proof of her accuracy should she face and utterly confound Edwin when he meets her request for the coat to be given away, with the remark, ‘That coat! What can you be thinking of? I only bought it a month or two ago!’ He is often so flabbergasted at learning the treasure is at least eighteen months old that he says no more, and allows Angelina to bear it off to gladden the heart of some old pensioner, on whose back it somehow looks so extremely well that Edwin cannot believe Angelina was right in her dates, and at every opportunity points out its excellent appearance on Jones or Styles as a proof of her reckless extravagance.

A little careful stealing from a husband who is an inveterate hoarder, and will not even succumb to the uncontradictable date, can be practised to advantage, and at the risk of exposing my own wickedness, and believing that a male eye rarely, if ever, falls upon my words of wisdom, I may tell Angelina in the very strictest confidence how I have sometimes been driven to circumvent the nameless one spoken of before.

I have watched the gradual overflow of the wardrobe—ay, even on to the floor and the three chairs, and, biding my time, have neatly arranged the drawers, being quite sure I shall be asked immediately what I have done with all the precious things, missed the moment the dressing-room is entered. I disclose them arranged elsewhere, and after a week or two, when the gardener and the coachman’s children have been scanned surreptitiously but eagerly to see if I have already given these valuable relics away, they become forgotten, or are only asked after occasionally; then, as time goes on, they are quite forgotten, and if asked for after three months cannot be found, as they are already doing duty elsewhere, under new and altered circumstances. Old boots it is almost impossible to get rid of without a positive battle, though how a man’s happiness or welfare depends on knowing he has fourteen pairs of dreadful old boots under the kitchen dresser, to say nothing of as many more concealed in his own room and his dressing-room, is really more than I can understand, and must be one of those problems of life we are compelled to take as such, and leave for time to solve, if it possibly can.

I do not think it is of the very smallest use to give Edwin anything pretty of his ‘very own,’ as the children say, in his dressing-room. It is always a narrow, circumscribed spot, and brackets are apt to be knocked askew and their contents smashed, picture-glasses also coming in for similar hard treatment, while extra shelves for books are soon overloaded, and come rattling down in the dead of night, taking at least ten years off one’s life with the awful fright received.

Therefore, if Edwin have a really nice wardrobe, a chair, and a dressing-table and washing-stand combined, as described previously, it is really all he wants, unless, of course, the room be a good size, when the walls can be decorated at will. Equally, of course, the wall-paper and the dado should match the bedroom, and here more than anywhere else should be the substantial dado of either cretonne or matting, as here the walls get mysterious knocks and indentations even more than they do in the passages and bedrooms.

If the bath has to be taken in the dressing-room—and sometimes even now old houses have not bath-rooms—the bath should stand on a large square of oilcloth, covered by a ‘bath blanket.’ This should be taken up and dried, and the oilcloth wiped carefully, as soon as the bath is emptied, or both will soon rot and be spoiled.

Very nice ‘bath blankets’ are made by taking the old-gold and dark brown blankets one buys of Mansergh and Sons, Lancaster, from 3s. to 11s. 6d. a pair, according to size, though those at 7s. a pair are the best size. A piece should be cut from one end to make the blanket square; and one of Francis’s conventional designs should be ironed off in each corner, which is then worked over in either outline or a thick ‘rope’ or twisted chain-stitch, in double crewels, in about two or three colours. For instance, old gold looks well with the work in two shades of brown crewels, with a dash of dull blue; the brown blankets with golden crewels with, perhaps, a dash of red. But as it is rather difficult to get the design clearly on the rough, fuzzy blanket, an easier style is in cross-stitch. The canvas must be very coarse, and tacked to the blanket. An edging, as well as corners, looks nice, and the canvas threads must be pulled out afterwards. I think a big cross-stitch, monogram, or cypher looks nice. The edges of the blanket can be either button-holed over or hemmed with a line of cross-stitch defining the hem. These blankets are a great ornament to a bath or dressing-room, and are invaluable in any room where the bath must be taken in the room itself.

CHAPTER XIII.

SPARE ROOMS.

Now I see no use in preparing these species of save-alls in a room that is not always in use. If a thing be worn, then cover it; but I can’t bear anything to be covered over to be saved. Better let all fade decently together, and do your patching out of a second carpet or a second material that has already done duty in another room. It is useless, I think, to cover handsome things; much better rub down the gorgeousness and subdue the splendour altogether, for nothing looks worse or, in my eyes, more atrociously vulgar than a room utterly unlike one’s usual chamber, grandly prepared for the reception of ‘company.’ Once one’s acquaintances and friends are given satin chairs to sit on, instead of the usual cretonne, they become bores to me at least, and, unless they can be satisfied to see me as I always am, I would rather they stayed away. There is always a stiffness and uncomfortableness in any gathering to entertain which we have felt it necessary to uncover our chairs.

In the same way let us in our upper chambers wear our things out equally. Splashers have become almost unknown since the invention of the high tiled-backed washing-stands, and so in another way mats have ceased to exist because bath-rooms are now almost universal possessions, and as most people—I will not say all—know how to behave themselves in one’s house, there is no need even to put down the conventional square by the washing-stand that really was necessary when a washing-stand was one’s only chance of properly performing one’s ablutions.

Now most people have bath-rooms; but, if they have not, the bath can be prepared in the same way in the bedroom as described in our last chapter for the dressing-room.

I think every one who possibly can should possess something in the shape of a spare room, although, as I remarked in one of my former chapters, I have suffered so much from my visitors that I approach the subject feeling as if I at least could not have very much sympathy with it. And in no case will I advise any one to set apart for the use of the occasional visitor one of the best rooms in the house, as is far too often the case in those houses where the spare room should be either the nursery itself or a room for some of the children of the house! I have once or twice been literally so horrified at finding the room I should have at once given for the children set apart for visitors as a matter of course, and quite without a second thought, that I am compelled to speak rather more emphatically, perhaps, on this subject than I otherwise should do; but, after all, the house is the children’s home, and for their sake I must beg attention from those who, as a matter of course, take the best rooms themselves, the second and third best for visitors, and then any rooms that may be over for the little ones, keeping the worst of all for ‘the boys,’ as if boys were raging beasts, to be put out of sight and hearing as far as ever the limits of the house would allow. Whilst recognising that a spare room is a necessary and pleasant thing, at once, so as to disarm criticism, I must ask my kind, good readers to ponder for a moment on what putting aside the very best room for one’s friends means in an ordinary building where there are at the most three or four rooms on the floor above the ‘reception’ rooms, to use a house-agent’s term, which said term means a great deal more than perhaps meets the eye at first.

It means keeping empty, perhaps, three parts of the year the brightest and most cheerful apartments, and it means relegating the children to inferior rooms, which, with a little taste and common-sense, can be made pretty, comfortable, and charming for your friends, who come presumably to see you, and not to spend the best part of their time in their bedrooms, for if they do they may just as well have stopped at home.

Now there is a great deal, to my mind, that can be written about the ethics of visiting that insensibly calls for attention, when we ponder over that problem of a spare room, and that may perhaps not be out of place, so I dwell for a few moments upon them before going into the decorative details of this particular chamber. One of the latest fads of social life is to do away with introductions at parties, and another is to ask people to stay with us, and, from the moment they enter our doors to the moment they leave them, to go on with our own occupations and engagements, exactly as if we had no friends staying with us; or rather as if we kept an hotel, and the comings in and goings out of our guests had no more to do with us than have those of the people staying in an inn to the people who keep it.

Perhaps the position and the luxurious comfort of the chamber prepared for their reception—half sitting-room, half bedroom as it is—suggests to the guest more than it is meant to do, and therefore should be altered before hospitality has ceased from the face of the earth and become a mere empty mockery.

I have often enough seen all sorts and descriptions of ideas for writing tables and other conveniences in a spare room, but of this I will have none; if I ask people to come and see me I want them to be with me, and not in their own rooms half the time; and letters can surely be written either in my company, or in the dining-room, should I be occupied in my own sanctum: while work of all sorts can be brought down after breakfast, when the members of the male sex have gone off to business, and there need be no reason for secluding oneself in one’s bedroom to do one’s mending.

I maintain that guests staying in one’s house should be treated to what servants call company manners, and that we should make a difference for them, and try and make their visits pleasant to them, considering that they have come to us for a holiday; that leaving them to themselves, and going our own way while they go theirs, is distinctly averse to all the laws of old-fashioned and true hospitality; and that by making the spare room into a species of boudoir we appear to hint to them that we do not want them with us, except after dinner or for the afternoon drive, or really on any occasion when we can possibly do without them.

I should take as nice a room as I could for my guests after my children’s convenience has been thought of—I like mine as near me as possible, and if possible on the same floor, with a schoolroom upstairs, a most invaluable possession in childish ailments, when change of room is wanted without any risks of draughts run by going downstairs—and though, of course, our proverbial bride and bridegroom will not have to think of all this for some years to come, I find I have had so many readers beside the bride for whom I meant to write this book that I cannot help being a little discursive for their sakes, the while I beg Angelina not to take the best room in the house for her guests, because she will hesitate so very much more, if she does, over dismantling the pretty room when the ‘king comes’ to his kingdom, and Miss or Master Baby arrives to rule the household with an iron rod.

Some of the charming painted suites of furniture are as nice as anything for the spare room, and take a great deal of raiment, and I strongly advise Angelina always to ask her guests if the boxes may be removed from the room. As soon as they are unpacked they can be put in the box-room until required, even if the visit is only for a few days, for a dirty travelling trunk can do a great deal of mischief, and, if put against the wall, has often enough ruined the paper, and dug holes in the plaster by being continually opened and shut as things were taken in and out. The paper and paint of the spare room should be a matter for great and careful consideration, too, and here I very strongly advise a dado of some kind or other. I always advise a dado in a bedroom of cretonne or matting, however the bed is placed, as nothing saves the walls so long from the tender mercies of the housemaid, and so keeps the room looking nice.

I heard of a bedroom in the country the other day that seemed to me the very ideal bedroom for a guest. The paint was white, and the paper was the very faintest possible shade of eau-de-Nil. There was a dado of eau-de-Nil and white chintz, with, I believe, a pattern of lilies-of-the-valley on, and the curtains were of the same. The bed had an eider-down quilt in green silk—rather extravagant this—and the furniture was all in white wood, with green and white mats &c. about. The effect in summer was simply perfect. I am, however, afraid in winter the effect would be too cold; but to be equally pleasant then, however, the cold effect could be obviated by putting pink cretonne curtains instead of the green chintz, and putting pink mats and a pink cover to the eider-down; but the pink must be very carefully chosen, and be either very faint or else almost terra-cotta, or it would look tawdry, I am sure.

The eider-down should always have a cover made of cretonne, like that used for the curtains, or else of a contrasting hue. The usual cover for an eider-down in turkey red would spoil any room, and as a motive of economy, if not of beauty, an extra cover is a very good thing; it makes the eider-down wear twice as long, and is able to be washed, a great advantage to anything that has to do with a bed.

There should always be four pillows and four or five good blankets to the spare-room bed, three pairs of sheets, the top one edged with Cash’s patent frilling two inches wide, and a large red monogram on the centre of the top sheet, and at least twelve pillow-cases, with four extra ones frilled, and with monograms in the centre, which should be removed at bedtime and folded up. The counterpane should be a honeycomb one, with a deep fringe all round, and these are the only counterpanes that should be bought for real use. They always look very much better than any others, and look as well after they are washed as they do before. A Madras muslin quilt thrown over the bed in summer looks very nice; in winter the eider-down is all that is required, though I dare say I shall shock my readers by telling them that I never put away my eider-downs anywhere through the house in summer. I rarely find it warm enough at night, sleeping as I do with my windows open, to do without them.

If we can only afford one spare room, that room should have a double bed in, as often married folk would like to come to us for a night or two, and I have found it very awkward myself, never being able to take in any one, save a girl or a young man, because I personally have in my present house no such accommodation, and a small room does not matter for one night, if the bed be comfortable and large enough.

Maple’s brass or black and brass bedsteads and ‘Excelsior’ mattresses are the most inexpensive bedsteads I know; a brass one should be chosen if one can afford this possibly, but a very nice black and brass one can be bought for 2l. 5s.; mattress (‘Excelsior’) at 2l. 9s.; hair mattress at 3l. 10s.; bolster at 17s. 6d., and good pillows at 5s. each. A room can be nicely and entirely furnished for 34l. 9s. 8d. in good furniture that will wear, though, of course, cheaper and less reliable furniture may be purchased. I actually hear that at Cardiff excellent suites of furniture in walnut can be bought for 12l., but I must believe these are simply veneered, and will fall to pieces at the least move or the smallest amount possible of wear and tear. There is no doubt that a great deal of thought has to be expended on a spare room, but there is not the smallest doubt that it ought to look as nice without (please forgive me for being insistent on this) suggesting a sitting-room, that our guests should feel at home in it at once. A flowery paper, like the old-fashioned chintzes, is bright and pleasant, but must not be too scrawly, or it will not be nice should sickness overtake our guest; but it should be lively and charming, and suggestive of pleasant thoughts, and then I am sure we shall be repaid by hearing our friends exclaim, ‘Oh, what a sweet room! Why, I feel rested already.’

And now let me whisper one or two little sentences in Angelina’s ear, suggested by what I have let slip above about possible sickness overtaking a guest, for very few people ever contemplate this side of the guest-chamber question.

It may be terribly bad for such a thing to happen in our new sweet room, but, however horrid it is for us, let us all recollect it is just one thousand times worse for the unfortunate ‘sick and ill,’ as the children say; for, in addition to his or her own pain and sufferings, he has the mental agony of knowing he has committed the one unpardonable sin, and that he has dared to fall sick in some one else’s house, that he is some miles from his own doctor (and who believes, I should like to know, in any one’s doctor except one’s very own?), and that servants, hostess, and host are all vowing vengeance on him for his untoward behaviour.

But it is on such occasions as this that the hostess rises to the occasion, shows her real self, and demonstrates the true lengths to which a hospitable soul will go. She laughs his apologies to scorn, declares she loves nursing, and so manages that the convalescent blesses the hour when he fell ill under such tender handling, and in consequence improves twice as soon as he otherwise would have done, had he fretted and worried over the bother he was giving, and had he been shown plainly he was as great a nuisance as he undoubtedly is.

I am not writing on this subject ‘without book,’ as the saying is. Naturally we should all exclaim indignantly, We should all do our very best for any one who falls ill under our care; and you, most of you, smile at me, doubtless, for daring to insinuate you would not; but I know cases where, especially to relatives, the hostess’s conduct was so chillingly all it ought to be, so freezingly polite, so intent on perpetually telling the unfortunate he was no trouble at all, in a martyr’s voice, that disclosed all her words sought to conceal, that I must be forgiven if I say it needs real Christian charity, and the heart and temper of a saint, to show real hospitality when sickness happens; and it will not do any harm for any of us to contemplate circumstances in which we may all of us some day be placed.

One other special thing to remember as regards the spare room is that it must always be in such order that, if necessary, it can be ready for occupation in half an hour. I knew a most excellent housekeeper who, scarcely before the last box of her friend had been carried downstairs, had put her room into ‘curl-papers’ as it were, carefully banishing everything from the light of day until such times as it was necessary to prepare the chamber once more, with much ceremony, for a new-comer.

Now I much object to this sort of thing. When I have brought a pleasant visit to an end in a friend’s house, it gives me a positive pang to see the pillows bereft of their cases and the bed of its sheets, and all covered over with a species of holland pinafore. I hate to see the toilet-covers taken off and folded up; and though this may be done when I am not there to see, it gives me such an unpleasant feeling that I never have the courage to put my spare room to bed; a room shrouded, gloomy, and unoccupied in a house always seeming to me like the unpleasant corpse of bygone pleasure, and as such to be strenuously avoided.

Then another reason, besides the mere sentimental one of disliking to see that one’s visit is really over and done with, is that such a dismantling of the room often puts it out of one’s power to entertain a sudden or unexpected guest, who comes down perhaps to dinner, and would be glad to spend the night, that may have turned out wet or cold, or that pleasantest of all pleasant visits, the Saturday to Monday sojourn, becomes impossible too, for it is not worth while to get the room ready for such a short time, when so much of Saturday would be taken up in airing the beds, and unpinning and putting up curtains, and shaking out toilet-covers, &c.

Now if the room be always straight, and requires nothing but the sheets on the bed, there is no trouble in the matter, and we are neither flurried ourselves nor allow our guests to be uncomfortably conscious that their arrival has made any difference to our domestic arrangements at all. I am quite sure, too, that it is a most excellent thing for most people to have some one staying in the house with them occasionally; much, secretly, as I dislike it myself, excusing myself to myself for my boorishness by saying my work prevents me being really able to entertain my visitors, still I never part with a guest without quite as secretly acknowledging that it has done us all an immense amount of good to be shaken out of our grooves—ay, even if our own special chair has been taken, and the newspapers read and the magazines cut before I have looked at them, another fad of mine, for, entre nous, nothing tries my otherwise angelic temper more than for some one to read out choice bits of news before I have seen them myself, or to read all the magazines before I have carefully gone over them, peeping at the pictures, and reading here and there a scrap, before settling down to them regularly one after the other.

One cannot help recognising these evil habits even in one’s own self, and knowing that nothing makes a person more selfish, and therefore more unendurable, than to have no one to interfere with one’s puerile little fancies and equally puerile little rules and regulations! In a small household rules and regulations that touch the servants, of course, must be simply ‘Median and Persian,’ or the house would never get along at all; but it puts no one out except ourselves, should we have to take the left side of the fireplace instead of the right, and it does us more good than I can say to have to control our small irritations at having our routine of life broken into, and to be shown that the world will not stop if we do go out in the morning instead of the afternoon, and that nothing appalling will happen should we be obliged to talk at breakfast, instead of, as usual, burying ourselves in our letters and our papers generally.

A constant supply of guests for the night, or on the Saturday-to-Monday principle, insures a constant change in our ideas and thoughts, and does away with that ‘Englishman’s house is his castle’ notion that is so very pernicious, and that puts a stop to so much inexpensive and common-sense hospitality; while a new, cheerful face at the dinner-table relieves the strain of domesticity between husband and wife, and often insures a game of chess, or music, instead of the books and silence which would otherwise, perhaps, have been the order of the day.

Another thing also to recollect about the spare room, too, is, not to get into the habit of using the shelves and drawers in the wardrobe as a species of store-place. I know nothing more enraging than to be shown into a charming-looking room, with a beautiful great cupboard, and a gallant chest of drawers, that seem to promise us ample breathing-room for one’s things, and to discover half the space we were so very gleefully looking forward to appropriating is already taken up by all sorts and conditions of household plenishing, or of last year’s garments, or even the garments of the year before. I remember quite well once having such a receptacle turned out for me; and I saw carried away, the hostess’s wedding dress and veil of some ten years back, all the long clothes and short clothes of the babies, small and great, several venerable opera-cloaks and fans, and, finally, a store of old linen put by against emergencies. You can all of you imagine what I endured. Not that I should have asked for this to be done, by the way, but the maid came in to take my boxes, and I was obliged to say I could not part with them, because if I did I should have nowhere to put my belongings. Of course this insured the shelves being cleared, with the uncomfortable result to me described above. I never dared ask what had become of all I had turned out, but I cut my visit short and went on somewhere else, I felt so unhappy at thinking of all the unfortunate garments bereft of their usual resting-place.

The spare room should be a cheerful, flowery-looking room, as, indeed, should all bedrooms if possible, and, if a sofa cannot be squeezed in, one of Maple’s charming sofa-ottomans should be put there, and also an arm-chair and small table for books &c., for one’s guests sometimes have headaches, and, especially if we live in town and have up our country cousins, require occasionally half an hour’s rest after a long day’s sight-seeing; or after the drive in the sleepy country air, if the cases are reversed, and we, in our turn, are country cousins entertaining our London friends with our own special sights and sounds.

No matter where the house is situated, every bedroom window should open at the top. This in London obviates a great many blacks flying in, as they do when the sash is thrown wide open at the bottom; an inch at the top seems to do more good than a yard anywhere else, and in the country prevents the deluges and spoiled paint and carpets caused by a sudden storm in the night, or, indeed, in the daytime, when the open window allows the tempest to enter bodily, as it were—unrecognised in the night, of course, unless one is awakened by any specially violent gust; and unseen by the housemaid in the day, who, whoever she may be, never seems to remember that such weather means that the windows should be immediately closed.

Every single thing belonging to the spare room should be religiously kept for its own use: the brass can for hot water, the palm-leaf soiled-linen basket, the little black cupboard for boots, which also serves as a table, the pin-trays, and the pincushion—all should never be allowed to stray away, and matches in a box nailed to the wall should also never be forgotten any more than the candles in their fixed stands, and the various little ornaments upon the mantelpiece, which should include a very regularly wound and most trustworthy clock.

If possible, I should have some pretty framed photographs on the wall, and, above all, a small bookcase, with a cupboard below for medicine and toilet bottles. I cannot bear the look of bottles standing about, and, besides that, medicine bottles are apt to be put down after the medicine is poured out, and sundry drops run down, and a sticky ring is left on the new toilet-cover as a reminder of one’s guest, which is not as nice as one could wish. The medicine cupboard conveys a hint the most obtuse must take, and, as they only cost about 6s. 9d., are within the reach of almost every one. A few judiciously chosen amusing novels and good poetry can well be spared for the spare room, and often are of considerable service to guests who may not go about provided with their own literature. Reading often will lure back sleep, or pass away an hour profitably; and should we breakfast later or go to bed earlier than our guest is accustomed to at home, he takes a book and forgets he is waiting, and blesses instead of ‘cusses’ the difference in our household routine.

It seems to me even now that I have not said half as much on the mere relation of guest to host and hostess as I could have done, though I have hardly yet mentioned the word ‘furniture,’ so a few more hints may be dropped here. Never should any one be allowed to come to stay without the hostess herself seeing that a new nice square of soap is in the newly-washed soap-dish; that the towels are folded right, the water fresh and pure in the ewer, and also in the artistic jug, bought, if she be wise, at Douglas’s, in Piccadilly, in tints to match the ewer; and making sure all is perfectly clean and in order. A small glass of flowers should stand on the toilet-table as a special greeting to one’s friend, and all should suggest that personal thought and care has been given to the special shrine set apart for his or her reception.

I wonder who ever forgets their first visit from home, or who can cease to remember the sense of importance given to us, who once were brides, when our first guest arrived to stay with us, and inspect our new home, which we were then perfectly convinced was far prettier, neater, brighter, and more redolent of love and perfection than any place had ever been before, or could possibly be in the future. Ah! thank Heaven for memory! Tout lasse, tout passe, tout casse, but memory never dies; and if we in our first start in life have charming surroundings and pleasant homes, even if they only are of the simplest nature, as long as we live they are ours, and none can ever take them away from us.

Then another thing in the spare room to be particularly looked to is the arrangement for lighting it. Here gas is a sine quâ non. Candles are most dangerous; a careless guest drops the grease about, or maids cannot resist taking them about too, and more harm is done by candles in a house than almost anything else. At the same time, if gas be not laid on anywhere, the useful brass fixed brackets for candles are necessary; but they should be fixed one or two above the looking-glass, one above the bed, and one above the washing-stand, all the candles guarded by glass shields, and none loose, able to be carried about in a careless or heedless way. If there be no gas, a nightlight should always be provided, with a bracket for its reception, for there are some people who cannot sleep without a light, and nothing is so disagreeable as to have to ask for these little things, and to find that by making such a request we have upset the whole house; though, if a guest be thoughtful, and has these little fads, she should take nightlights &c. about with her. A quite model guest of mine the other day arrived with her own hot-water bottle. Could thoughtfulness go further than this?

If gas be in the house, there should always be a bracket as near the bed as possible. It cannot hurt any one to read in bed if there be no danger of setting the house on fire; and I am so fond of this pernicious habit, and feel so unhappy myself if I cannot indulge in it, that I always, if possible, make provision for my guests to read too, if they are ‘so minded,’ as the people in Dorsetshire always say.

So, before I describe one or two other arrangements of colours that might be tried in the spare room, I may mention two things that should never be lacking there. One is a clock; the other a list of the hours of the household and the postal arrangements—two things that will go some way to insure punctuality.

I could at once sit down and write a chapter all to itself on the inestimable blessings of punctuality, and the extreme rudeness of being unpunctual in the house of a friend.

In a small, or indeed in any ordinary, house, unpunctuality means disorder and waste of time, and, in consequence, of money. It means loss of temper both for mistress and servants, and it means throwing out all the little rules and routine on which so much depends. If a clock be provided in the spare room the two pet excuses, ‘Oh! I forgot to wind my watch,’ or ‘My watch lost an hour in the night,’ are done away with; while the hours of breakfast &c. contain a hint that cannot well be lost on the most obtuse person possible.

What does being late for breakfast mean? Let all lie-a-beds think over that problem, and if they cannot solve it for themselves, if they apply to me I will do so for them.

After all is said and done, I think blue and some shades of green (not arsenical shades—pray remember that) are the most restful colours for bedrooms, though terra-cotta can be used to great advantage in rooms where there is not much sun, and, while I like ivory paint if judiciously used with a brilliant paper, I cannot imagine anything more wretched than the little white bedroom old-time heroines used to rush up to, and cast themselves down in, when their lovers proved faithless and they wished to be alone. Nothing is colder-looking and more unrestful than white, and I do not like for a bedroom these white-enamelled suites of furniture that one can buy. I much prefer them enamelled turquoise blue. Nothing is so pretty as this for a spare room, or the room set apart for the daughter of the house, except, of course, good ash furniture with brass fittings. This I should always have, were I able to afford it, in all my rooms, for I do not, and never shall, like dark woods or dark furniture in a bedroom, or indeed, as far as that goes, in any room, but a really good light wood is always pleasant to look at, and in consequence is to be preferred to enamelled furniture, which shines terribly somehow, and rather annoys me on the whole. I am now speaking about bedroom furniture not about drawing-room furniture, where the enamelled chairs and cabinets look charming and are all that they ought to be, but simply of the bedroom furniture I would have if one could afford it; but if one cannot afford really beautiful wood, I then much prefer to paint the things a charming colour, than to see common wood or the grained and stained horrors one used to be obliged to put up with, before Aspinall’s came to our aid and suggested blue or white, instead of the yellow streaks that were our portion in those unhappy days.

Now here is, I consider, one of the prettiest rooms I have yet succeeded in doing. It has Maple’s floral paper, a design that is just as pretty as ever it can be; the paint is all cream-coloured and ‘flatted,’ so that it washes just as a boarded floor does; there is a red and white matting dado, a dado rail painted cream-colour, and the cretonne, also Maple’s, at 1s. 4½d. a yard, almost matches the paper, and looks really charming. The floral paper has a sort of flowery scroll all over it, and at first I was rather afraid it would turn out to be fidgety. I feared the flowers would run after each other over the walls, and refuse to be peaceable and quiet, but they are just what they ought to be, and never seem to move at all, while the cheerful effect of the blues, reds, and creams, that appear to make up the design without interfering with each other in the least, is really wonderful. I have had the ceiling papered with a very pretty blue and white paper, and on the walls I have a great many pictures, and have surrounded the dark over-mantel with Japanese fans and brackets, while the stove and mantelpiece came from Mr. Shuffery, and are, in consequence, all that they ought to be.

I have matting and rugs about the floor, and have light ash furniture, which I think looks better in a bedroom than anything else, and is to be preferred to all enamelled or painted suites, on which I fall back as a pis aller, when I cannot afford really good light wood, as I remarked before.

This would make a charming room for the best spare room, particularly if quilt and toilet-cover and pincushion box were covered with Russian embroideries in red and blue; in this case, the towels and sheets and pillow-cases should be worked with red and blue monograms too; in all cases should the towels be worked to match the pillow-cases. This does not take long, and at once gives an air of culture that nothing else does.

Perhaps a few words on the subject of a spare room set apart for bachelors would not be out of place; for young men, as a rule, are so careless that they require special legislating for. A quite charming and very cheap room can be made by using a delightful little blue and white paper sold by Messrs. Chappell and Payne, 11 Queen Street, Cheapside, at 10½d. a piece—it is 1,044; with this a dado of the willow-pattern cretonne could be used, and the paint could be all cream, or the grey-blue of the paper; the ceiling should be terra-cotta, and the floor should be stained, and some dhurries put about; the curtains could be dhurries too, or else terra-cotta ‘Queen Anne’ cretonne, sold by Burnett, and the furniture simply enamelled grey or terra-cotta. The hours of the household should be prominently displayed over the mantelpiece, while the gas should be placed near the bed to allow of reading, and no candles allowed, else may we run the risk of being burned in our beds; one of Drew’s handy little 1s. 6d. lamps with shades being quite enough light should anything be forgotten downstairs, and it should be thought necessary to keep a light in a room, that we can carry about. Candles do an immense amount of damage, and are very costly: two excellent reasons why we should impress upon ourselves and our readers never to use them unless we cannot positively avoid doing so.