fringe at 6d. a yard, and the carpet should be dark blue pile, with a pattern that resembles tiny daisies powdered all over the surface in a paler shade of blue.

Great exception has been taken to Pither’s printed linen because it fades. So it does; but then it is very cheap, it lasts two years in a sunny window, four in one that is not sunny, and, finally, dyes beautifully, fringe and all, coming back from the immortal Pullar as good as on the day it was first bought. I don’t think one can complain very much about a material which behaves like that, can one? But, of course, the printed linen as curtains can be replaced by silk, damask, or by ‘47’ cretonne itself, should the first-named material be objected to.

No colour lights up so well as yellow—I am quite sure of that; and another decoration could be made from the yellow ‘Othmar’ paper sold by Essex, all cream paint, and a frieze of chrysanthemums, either painted by hand, or else of the excellent printed design sold by Haines at 3s. 6d. the yard. With this the carpet should be red, and the curtains should either be of a brocade which introduces the shades in the flowers, or else of a cretonne: all would depend on how much money there was to spend; but whether cretonne or brocade is used, it must match the frieze in some measure. Though great cornices and vast pier-glasses over mantel-pieces are entirely out of date, and will never, I trust, return into fashion, there are still some unfortunates who labour under these possessions, and who dare not rid themselves of them, much as they would like to do so, and who may be glad to learn how these horrors may in some measure be mitigated. All cornices become less repulsive directly they are Aspinalled ivory. I cannot tell why, but this seems to metamorphose them at once, and makes them quite ornamental, while the frame of the glass can be treated in the same manner, unless the frames are quite flat, in which case they should be covered with brocade, in the same manner in which the fashionable frames for photographs are now managed. In any case, all the heavy flourishes and ‘ornaments’ should be removed, and the glass made in every way as plain and unobtrusive as possible. Draping with muslin, or even with Liberty silk, is never successful, and only makes the object draped like one of the lodging-house possessions, carefully guarded in a similar manner by the careful landlady from the encroachments of the flies, and is therefore much to be avoided.

Never, no matter what the time of year, put it out of your power to have a fire, should you so desire it. I still cling to the Japanese umbrella, and have never found a substitute for it which is so absolutely satisfactory. If its stick is properly cut it hides the wood and coal and grate entirely, and gives a bright spot of colour, and can be removed at once. A curtain hung straight down from a slight rod just under the top of the grate itself looks very neat, as does a series of rings to hold flower-pots, just brought out by Hamilton, of the Quentin Matsys Forge, York Street, Westminster. This holds twelve pots of flowers, and can be lifted out in a moment altogether should a fire be required, and would always look well put down in a corner of the room. One of the Guild brocade screens with miniatures answers well too, and Giles has invented from my description a fireplace cabinet, which, put under the wooden mantel-piece—which is de rigueur in an artistic house—continues the mantel and overmantel decorations, and makes the whole appear like a good cabinet for books, china, and flowers. This can also be removed in a few minutes, and either hung on the wall or placed in a corner of the room.

The perfect câche-feu has yet to be invented, but until some clever genius has done this, either of the above ideas answers quite well; but I do solemnly warn my readers against fashionable trellis-work with paper ivy and grapes wandering over it, fans outstretched in plush with senseless photographs let in—as if photographs could be in place on the hearth!—and all the thousand and one freaks of fashion that are brought out by those who ought to know better, and who have filled many houses to overflowing with terrible plush frames, soiled satin bags, useless odds and ends, and ghastly painted tables, brackets, and stands, which are costly to begin with, and so we do not like to dispose of them too hastily, and which should never be seen in the houses of those who really want to have an artistic and pretty home; with which solemn warning we will pass on to sterner subjects, and will consider in another chapter how to treat the more ‘manly’ portion of the house, where work or pleasure may be gone in for.

CHAPTER IV.

THE BILLIARD-ROOM AND LIBRARY.

And before I speak of the mere walls and furniture of a billiard-room let me impress upon my readers not to allow this room to be turned into a base imitation of a tap-room. I am not a teetotaler, and have small patience with those intolerant individuals whose language and statements are all too often as bad and violent as they are absolutely unreliable and untrue, and I do not believe in the possibility of living our present eager and artificial existence without the aid of alcohol in some shape or the other, certainly not after we have borne the heat and stress of the day, and we require something stronger than water to sustain us, but I do absolutely condemn the insane and insensate habit in which so many indulge nowadays of continually drinking between meals. Were stimulants taken at meals only, were spirits, with the exception of brandy (which should be kept entirely as a most valuable medicine), abolished, we should have no drunkards, and the teetotalers would lose all excuse for their most unpleasant and untruthful existences; and as we now seldom see a drunkard in our streets, and never contemplate the pleasing scenes which after dinner, in our great-grandmothers’ times, were visible in many dining-rooms, from which no gentleman ever issued to join the ladies, because he was generally under the table or else fast asleep with both arms on it, I am in great hopes that we are learning to be a sober nation, though I hope sincerely never to see it an absolutely teetotal one, for beer and wine are necessary, I am convinced, in our climate, and we should be miserable indeed were we debarred, as the fanatics would debar us, from the use of all fermented or alcoholic drinks.

But we must be moderate and we must not drink between meals, and we must avoid the constant sodas-and-brandies which appear inseparable from some billiard-rooms, and to which is due, no doubt, the pious horror many good folks have of this chamber in a house; and I should like it to be firmly understood that the room was for the game merely, and that anything like ‘nipping’ would be at once and sternly discouraged. This being satisfactorily settled, we may proceed to plan and decorate our billiard-room with a clear conscience, secure in the fact that we are simply providing a place for innocent amusement, that will be of invaluable service at night and on wet Saturday afternoons, and that will not prove a snare and stumbling-block to any, more especially if we as sternly refuse to allow gambling as we refuse to allow imbibing at odd moments of the day or night.

I am always astonished that no crusade has been raised against the national sin of gambling. Drink ruins the homes of poor men, but not more certainly or rapidly than gambling ruins the homes of rich men, and of men far from rich. Drink may kill a man, but it takes a great many drunkards to imbibe an estate, while one night’s gambling may scatter the savings of a lifetime and turn all the wretched children of a selfish gambler into the streets to starve. I have been horrified sometimes to see ladies and gentlemen hot, eager, excited, gambling in private houses, the host actually bent on winning from those who are enjoying his hospitality, the hostess almost insulting her guests in her awful anxiety to gain the contents of their purses; and I am convinced that the only way to escape this demon is to refuse to pander to it at all, to never allow one single penny to be staked at cards in one’s own house, and to make this such a rule that it would be impossible to break it on any consideration whatever. I have seen pennies played for which begat the taste for gambling for much larger sums; and I have never seen a house where gambling was allowed truly prosper, or be anything save the residence of those whose ideas and hopes were centred in this world only, and never rose above the mere ‘society’ existence, than which nothing can be more despicable and awful.

This book is not a tract, and therefore I do not say one half I should like to on this subject; but as I remember the ruined homes—one family especially, where all are scattered and most are dead, where gambling went on in the schoolroom and drawing-room alike, at every moment which could be snatched for the purpose; the broken hearts, the miserably wrecked careers, entirely due to this vice; when one can hardly take up a paper without seeing the dreary fate of some wretched youth, whose tendencies to betting and gaming have caused him to rob his master’s till and landed him in penal servitude, I must say I cannot help feeling astonished that the eager teetotalers do not try their hands at putting down gaming, especially as they have the law on their side—the kind, good, well-devised law which snaps up little boys who play pitch-and-toss at the corners of the streets, that winks at Tattersall’s and the big races, and finally is utterly powerless to punish the high-class gamester, who spends his nights at gaming-hells and ruins his home and his wretched constitution at the same time.

However, lest I weary my readers in dwelling on this subject, about which one cannot say too much, I think I will now simply speak of the decoration of the billiard-room, having, I hope, so judiciously sandwiched the powder between the jam in this chapter, that those who seek for information about the room itself may unawares come upon it, and so be forced to meditate, whether they like it or not, on some of the reasons why so many people dread the idea of a billiard-room where there are boys. If gambling were non-existent, the veriest Chadband might learn to handle the cue; while a pastor at a dissenting chapel need not dread the eyes of his deacons were he found disporting himself in the halls of the ungodly, which would cease to be ungodly, or be no more so than the harmless tennis-courts, were betting eliminated from among their charms, and nothing but the game itself really and truly encouraged and allowed.

A big room is a necessity for a billiard-room, which should never, by any chance, be shorter than twenty-six feet long by twenty broad; a full-sized table measures twelve feet by six, and the size I have spoken of only allows sufficient comfortable room for walking round the table, and for the usual raised seats which are always put at the ends and on one side of the room. Personally, I should prefer a much larger room still, as I like to see one end of the room furnished as a species of sitting-room; but, of course, in London the twenty-six by twenty room would be ample. In the country, the billiard-table comes in for days when shooting is impossible, and the sitting-room end there is a great advantage in more ways than one.

Quite a charming billiard-room can be made by using all brown paint and a high dado, to the top of the door, of brown and gold Japanese leather paper; above the dado the wall should be painted café-au-lait; the cornice should be replaced by a coving, which should terminate in a top-light, from whence the ordinary cross-lights could be hung for use at night, and these surely could be in beaten iron with some prettier shades than the hideous green things which match the equally hideous cloth, which I hope to see replaced soon by something a little more artistic, say in such a room as the one I have just described, by a dull brown cloth, which surely would be every bit as satisfactory as the green, which is certainly the most aggressive shade of green which has ever been made. In this case the shades could be blue, with some lace over them, or the yellow with no lace at all.

Where the ceiling is coved, the coving should always be decorated either with gold leather paper or by an artist’s brush; and I have seen most elaborately drawn pictures of the old wooden ships of Henry VIII.’s time in a similar coving, in sepia on a cream ground, which looked perfectly beautiful, and which I should recommend in a similar room, where stags’ heads and other trophies of the chase should be arranged on the painted wall, which should be too high for pictures, which could not be hung on the dado either, for fear of their being damaged by the ends of the cues. I should advise the use of printed yellow linen for curtains, edged, of course, with ball fringe, were there any windows in the room beside the top-light, which should have a gathered soft yellow blind arranged to draw over it in very hot weather; while the table itself, when not in use, should be covered with a large square of yellow serge lined with American cloth, with a big monogram embroidered on one corner; this would preserve the table, and look much better than the ordinary cloth.

The floor should be parqueterie with strips of velvet pile carpet in golden brown on the four sides; these should be mitred at the corners, and no other carpet would be required, save, of course, a square if we had the drawing-room end to the room I advocated before; if not, the room should be kept for billiards only, when the strips round the table would be quite sufficient; the leather seats should be covered in brown leather, and the fire should be protected by one of the admirable guards sold by Benham & Co., and which have padded tops, on which people can sit and watch the game, and get comfortably warm at the same time.

I have seen a most ingenious arrangement of small cupboards in the overmantel of a billiard-room, which was pronounced invaluable for the safe storing away of cigars and tobacco, which should be mentioned, as of course smoking will be principally carried on in this room. The mantel-piece was walnut, and the fireplace the orthodox open grate and tiled hearth and back; the overmantel was carved to match the mantel, and was quite flat to the wall, which had been scooped out in some manner behind it, to allow of the formation of sundry square cupboards in the wall itself; these each held a cedar-wood box of cigars, with the front end off; and the cigars were so arranged that they could be taken out one by one, when the square wooden block in the overmantel, which formed the entrance to the cupboard, was unlocked, and fell forward on a hinge. No one could have suspected the overmantel of being a cupboard, and yet it was one; while at the same time this particular spot was especially pleasing, I believe, to the constitution of a cigar, which appears to require a certain amount of warmth, until it disappears finally into smoke, leaving its terrible odour behind it. On the mantel-piece itself were dull blue vases holding spills; several ingenious and expensive match-boxes, on which all matches appeared to me to refuse to ignite, and the usual débris one always finds in similar localities, filthy-looking pipes, old date stands, and stands for holding the hunt appointments, and similar expensive and broken toys, being there in vast abundance. Another excellent manner of decorating a billiard-room, where the owner had pictures to dispose of, and did not want a very elaborate or costly decoration, would be formed by papering the room entirely with real brown paper, and painting the room the same soft brown; a frieze should be added, if possible, of one of the Japanese hand-painted friezes one can buy occasionally at any decorator’s, representing a flight of wild ducks, or else of storks, among reeds and flowers; but if this cannot be either found or afforded, a plain gold and brown Japanese leather frieze would look well. This should not be less than fourteen inches wide; anything less is distinctly ugly; while it might come almost to the top of the door, which should be surmounted by one of Wallace’s simple over-doors to hold china, which should be blue and white. The curtains in this room should be Liberty’s very dark blue and white reversible cretonnes; the chairs could be either dark blue leather or saddle-bags with dark blue velvet surrounds; and the carpet should be dark blue pile. This would look well, and be an entirely pleasant scheme of decoration; a hand-painted frieze on brown paper would also be capital if expense were no object.

Yet another and a bolder decoration could be made by using Essex golden ‘Othmar’ paper, with Mandarin paint, and a wide frieze of the dull green ‘Othmar,’ dull green carpets, and Graham & Biddle’s beautiful yellow poppy cretonne, edged with dull green ball fringe, and lined dull green; the carpet should be the dull green ‘Stella’ pile carpet from Wallace’s, and all the chairs should be dull green leather.

If by chance there can be afforded or managed a drawing-room end to the billiard-room, a couple of screens will be found most invaluable; and if these screens have a long spike in each fold, to receive which a corresponding hole is bored in the floor, a great objection to screens will be done away with. Furnished with these spikes, which should be able to be unscrewed and removed quite easily, they could not possibly be knocked over; and, in my opinion, the tall standard lamps, which are so much in request just at present, should be furnished with similar spikes, as they always appear to me dreadfully dangerous, especially where there are children, or even dogs, or careless servants; for though, of course, the danger of fire is entirely done away with if we use Defries’s excellent patent for putting out the light as the lamp falls, the oil must be spilt and damage the carpet, while an unpleasant smash and fright are absolutely certain. We should be saved anything of the kind were my simple spike arrangement adopted by all those who use these lamps.

The drawing-room end of the billiard-room should have a bow window with a seat round, several cosy arm-chairs, a table capable of holding the week’s supply of newspapers and the month’s supply of magazines, each in its own proper corner, and a couple of serviceable paper-knives should be always forthcoming. There should be a nice little writing-table for the use of any who wish to scribble notes; and, above all, there should be either a long bookcase on the wall full of frivolous literature, or else one of Trübner’s excellent bookcases, which revolve and so allow one to reach any book in the case without rising from one’s comfortable seat.

A venerable piano which has seen better days is no mean addition to the comfort and pleasure of the billiard-room, and many an hilarious and impromptu entertainment has chased away the melancholy caused by a wet afternoon in the dismal winter country, due entirely to the happy presence among the company of a piano which was quite good enough to be used to accompany comic songs on, and amply good enough to form the basis for a recitation after—a long way after—Corney Grain or the immortal John Parry.

But though a big room is much better than a small one for billiards, people should not be deterred from having a table in their houses because their space does not allow of a full-sized one. The very nicest billiard-room I was ever in, and which, alas! is now no more, was that formed by using the square hall of a country vicarage; that table existed before the present age of artistic decorations, but whenever I remember it and the dear old house in which it stood I forget all art, and only remember the extreme fascination that place had for me, and can scent again the mingled odours of the vicar’s pipes and Maréchal Niel roses, which are inseparable from my remembrance of the place. The table stood squarely in the front hall, which was covered with brown linoleum, and was seldom unmarked by dogs’ feet for more than five minutes after it had been freshly washed, and we used to perch about on the tops of oak chests, the fender, anywhere, while the game progressed, as there was no room for seats. In addition to the hall table, the hat-stand, decorated with all sorts and conditions of hats, male and female, and the oak chests, one of which held the rugs and whips, the other the parish registers from some very bygone date, the walls themselves were decorated with stuffed birds and animals in glass cases, sundry collars and chains belonging to the dear dogs, driving-whips suspended in some cunning manner to keep them in shape, a barometer which survived the most fearful amount of banging and shaking that ever barometer was subjected to, and finally by the post-bag, which hung from a nail until it was fetched by a small village girl who rejoiced in the remarkable name of ‘Rhody Jemimy,’ who had to take and fetch the bag morning and evening from the ‘World’s End,’ the mail-cart bringing it and taking it from and to that mysterious location, for we were far too primitive in those parts to have a postman, and had our one post a day contentedly enough, though I believe the present denizen of the vicarage has clamoured until he has not only a postman but a second post; albeit, neither were ever required by us, who were perfectly happy in those blessed days without them. I dwell upon this room rather at length in order to encourage anyone who may hanker after a billiard-room, and not dare to think of it seriously because the necessary twenty feet by twenty space is not forthcoming, and, moreover, because they dread the expense as much as the want of room. Of course a new full-sized table is a very expensive thing, and fittings and all could not cost less than 150l.; but as soon as we have made up our minds that we can really have a billiard-table we must begin to look out for the sales, for very often there are compulsory sales about, where a very good billiard-table can be purchased for a quarter the price of a new one. I have known one sold for 25l., as the owner had forgotten to renew his lease and was given summary notice of dismissal, while a friend of mine bought a beauty for 40l. which simply required a little polish about the legs to be quite as good as new; but should money be of no real object, it would be better to go to some really first-class maker and have the table properly set up and made, for I believe there is great art in the proper placing of the table, and this should only be undertaken by someone who thoroughly understands the business; still, in a small room, and with a small and second-hand table, there may be found vast enjoyment if the bigger and more elaborate arrangement cannot possibly be managed.

I am always amused at some people’s determination not to be either happy, or complete in their household arrangements, because they cannot have the best of everything that is to be had, though I must confess such conduct makes me just a little cross as well. I have known folks utterly refuse to contemplate the joys of a jolly little pony and chaise because they didn’t care to set up a carriage unless they could do so properly; ‘properly’ in their case meaning the orthodox coachman, footman, horses, and a couple of carriages; whereas they condemned themselves to their own immediate neighbourhood and to tramping about the lanes, or to staying at home, because they could not understand that as much pleasure could be got out of the ‘shay’ as out of anything still more gorgeous. I have known folks decline with scorn to cover their ugly, depressing, bare walls with pictures, because they could not buy Millais and Herkomers; whereas their lives and their houses would have been brightened at once had they spent 20l. on autotypes. And I have as constantly been acquainted with dozens of folks who would not do this, that, or the other, because they must take a back seat so to speak, and who in consequence waste half their opportunities. I except society, by the way; if the best society is not forthcoming (and by the best society I mean the society of people who are clever and who have done, or long to do something to make the world brighter and happier than they found it), don’t have any. The contact with mean, small, and ignorant minds does one harm, not good; the constant rubbing against time-serving shoulders and the shoulders of those who would do any amount of grovelling to be received by what they consider the society of the neighbourhood, only smirches us, and we had better sit at home all our lives with our books alone than expose ourselves to the deterioration we receive from association with such folk. But, apart from society, I would rather have the second or third best of everything if I can’t have the first, for the more one gets out of life the better, and the more one sees of the world and of the nice people in it the wider do our minds become, and the more appreciation and enjoyment do we have from our lives.

With the plea for a secondhand billiard-table rather than none, I will turn away from the room with one last suggestion—viz. to have good thick curtains hung over any doors that there may be in the room, outside; this will keep the smell of the smoke within proper bounds, and will also keep out the sound of the click-click of the balls, than which nothing is more annoying—to me at any rate. These curtains could be made of Adams serge lined with Bolton sheeting; both these materials will wash and are to be had from Burnett’s, and should be very wide and full, and should hang well over the hinges and cracks of the door; these should further be surrounded by ‘Slater’s patent’ for excluding draughts, as naturally the room will be properly ventilated, and there would be no need to think of that, all our care being centred on keeping in the room all scent of the smoke and all sound of the balls. If the room is separate from the house, and only connected with it by a long passage, we may consider, I think, that nothing more is to be expected, and that here is indeed the perfect billiard-room. This room should be in the care of the head housemaid, whose first duty should be to open all the available windows every morning, no matter what the weather is like, to see all the cigar-ash is swept up, and finally to slip the curtains off the poles (a matter of three minutes exactly), to have them well shaken out of doors and left there for half an hour, having them replaced the moment the room is cleaned and set straight. Treated like this the billiard-room would always be fresh and nice, and would have no more smell of smoke about it than would be pleasantly suggestive to anyone who is not such a bitter enemy to smoke as I am.

And now about the library, the arrangement of which must depend entirely on the individual tastes and pursuits of the master of the house, whose room this is more especially; for in all big houses the mistress has her morning-room, and the guests generally are provided with writing-tables in their rooms, and would only venture into the library when the door was open, or by the rule of the house was made free to them during certain hours. Naturally, if the master were in no measure a literary man, if he had no Parliamentary work, or work that required him to isolate himself from the rest of the household at certain hours, the room would always be free; but it should be kept for writing and reading only, it should never be turned into a play-room of any kind; therefore there should be a certain sobriety about it, and it should not be furnished too frivolously or in such a manner as to suggest flirtation instead of study, sweet sleep instead of proper, severe application to one’s books.

Perhaps the very prettiest library I have ever seen is one in London, which may sound frivolous, but is nothing of the kind, and has some of the most serious work of the nation done between its four walls; it is enamelled white—doors, cupboards, bookshelves, overmantel, indeed everything, and has a most beautiful effect, especially against the dun-coloured, gold-tinted calf volumes, with which the shelves are most amply supplied; the shelves are supported on cupboards with brass locks and hinges, and are wide and deep enough to hold quantities of law papers; all these shelves and cupboards are ‘fitments’ passing completely round the room, and continuing under the windows. The only scraps of wall which show are papered with a very good Japanese leather paper, and the space above the mantel-piece is filled in with an old portrait; sundry pieces of blue china are on the mantel-piece, which are never without their fresh flowers; the carpet is a very fine Oriental one, with a great deal of white in it; the furniture is blue, as are the curtains, which are arranged across the top of each window and down one side only, while the enormous desk which occupies the centre of the room is a most exquisitely inlaid piece of marqueterie, and is the only coloured thing in the room, the frames of the chairs, &c., being enamelled like the room itself. Now this white idea for a library in London—dirty, smoky London—does seem absurd and a trifle frivolous, but the effect thereof is perfect, and as the application of a damp clean duster and a polish from a leather makes the room absolutely spotless, I see no reason why the white library should be scoffed at as an impossibility. A big beaten iron and copper lamp from Strode hangs in the centre of the room, and gives the finishing touch to a very perfect apartment.

Here the room is used for important work which requires absolute peace and absolute solitude, where the books refer to the special subject of study, and would be of no interest whatever to the ordinary man. Still, a modified edition of the white room could easily be carried out, and would be far more cheerful to live with, than the orthodox dark green and carved oak, or a base imitation thereof that we find in far too many houses; oak, in my opinion, being utterly unsuited to a modern house, and should only be used in a big old house where one looks for it as a matter of course. Of the modern imitation called Flemish oak I have no words of condemnation sufficiently strong; it is abominable, ugly, heavy, and badly executed, and should never be tolerated in any house where artistic decoration is encouraged and sought after.

If, as I said before, the master of the house does not require so much space for papers or books as to authorise him to cover in the entire wall-space at his command with fitments, I advise him to run his bookcases simply round the room to a height of an ordinary dado. Above this could be hung the ever-useful Japanese paper, or a real red-and-white paper, such as is Pither’s ‘buttercup.’ On the wall could be hung pictures, or a large cupboard well designed (and I should suggest Mr. Arthur Smee as the proper person to send to for this) should break the space of wall in the centre. The doors could be of cathedral glass in leaded squares, with broad brass hinges and locks; while the same design, of course on a much smaller scale, could be introduced over the mantel-piece. The desk could be enamelled white, and the top covered with Japanese leather paper. Of course the handles on the drawers must be brass; the blotting-book could be of red leather, with a plain monogram stamped on, or else the name of the room and of the house; and the head housemaid should be very particular about the state of the inkstand and of the blotting-book, though she should be forbidden, of course, to touch any of the papers on the desk, for fear she might lose important manuscripts. The mistress of the house should dust these herself if the master is touchy, or objects to other hands meddling with his belongings.

The curtains in a library should be thick and warm, and should, in the red-and-cream room, be in cream Roman satin, embroidered with red flowers if possible, or else of deep red Roman satin or Bokhara plush. The furniture sold by Hampton, covered in what they call ‘Khelims,’ but which is quite unlike the ordinary striped material I have always purchased as such, and is much more Oriental-looking, would do admirably in this room, where there should certainly be a couple of good sofas and four or five armchairs, and a small writing-table and chair beside the bigger one; while great care should be taken with the lighting, it being most important that a good light should fall on the book or writing-table, which should throw no fidgety shadows. When the electric light becomes general this advice will not be necessary, but until it is great care must be taken, before the lights are absolutely fixtures, to ascertain that they are in the right place, or else the unfortunate would-be readers and writers will be continually annoyed. The large standard lamps are useful in a library, as they can be moved at any moment, and further care should be taken in the choice of a carpet, which should be thick and soft, and should cover almost all the floor, thus saving the student any chance of being fidgeted by the sudden scroop of a chair pushed hastily back or by the noise of a falling book or of a sudden footstep.

In a small house a library would be impossible, and therefore I give no directions for a cheaper style of decoration, which, however, could be managed in judiciously chosen shades of green and white, and I will only now speak about the books and the manner of treating such a room.

No child or very young person, and no servant, no matter whom, should ever be allowed to read the library books, which should never under any pretext whatever be removed from the library, and should consist of histories, travels, poetry, and all standard works that have survived the fiery trial of a twenty years’ existence; the lighter works of to-day, which one reads when one is tired or wants simply to be amused, should be found in the billiard and morning rooms, and in every spare room in the house (Mudie’s books being also in these rooms), and on no account whatever should a really good book which forms part of a set, or is valuable, be lent; listen to no entreaties, place the book in the room at the disposal of anyone who cares to read it, but lend it and you may and will run the risk of losing your book, or of having to torment for it, until your friend hates you, although in strict justice he ought to hate himself for the trouble he has given you. In every library and, indeed, in every house, there should be a list of the books in each room, and whenever a book is added the name thereof should be written down. I speak feelingly, if a little bitterly, on the subject, for no one has lent more books than I have, and no one has been more ruthlessly robbed; for people who would be absolutely incapable of depriving one of a pin, lose and forget to return my books, and at last I have come to the conclusion that I will never lend another; books are cheap enough, goodness knows, and libraries swarm; let people borrow there, and close your heart to the would-be borrower if you want to keep your books, and not scatter them generously about the world at large.

Again, I should never forbid anyone to read any book whatever—a prohibition makes people anxious at once; but the fact that the library books must be kept in the library would deter the children from reading what they ought not, and we would forbid certain literature because of its binding, not because of the contents; this I have found act much better than the wholesale orders we were given on the subject, in consequence of which I had read all Defoe’s, Richardson’s, Fielding’s, and other works I should never have seen before I was sixteen, and wondered why on earth they were forbidden me. I should never have read one of them had I not wanted to see why I must not; they did me no harm, because I could not understand them; they might have done infinite harm to any other girl who was less babyish for her age than I happened in some mysterious manner to be, and therefore it is a good thing to keep such books where children do not come and where they are forbidden to touch books which are too well bound to be risked in their all-too-generally grimy little paws.

As in all the other rooms in the house, cheerfulness should be first thought of: a gloomy library, a library where the windows are obscured, is a mistake; cheerfulness is the first thing to be seriously cultivated by us all, in all relations of life, for it is indeed true, as the poet says—

therefore, in choosing and furnishing the library, remember this axiom, and let sunshine and brightness and cheerfulness be found there, as in every other room and place in the house; for we are insensibly and immensely influenced by our surroundings, and we should always make the best of our lives and belongings in every way we possibly can.

CHAPTER V.

SHALL WE DO AWAY WITH THE NURSERY?

I remember, years ago, going to see a house in which we had had many, many happy hours, and which had just passed from those we knew and loved to persons in an inferior station of life, with whom we should never have any dealings, and I have never forgotten the feeling of desolation that seized me when I looked up at the erstwhile nursery window, from which the bars were hanging broken, and remembered the faces that used never to be absent from that place—a feeling that was intensified a thousand times when I climbed up to the room itself, and looked for the last time on the walls, papered by ourselves with pictures from the ‘Illustrated News’ (I can remember them all vividly, from the marriage of the Princess Royal in one corner to pictures of the American War in the other), and recollected the boys who were all out in the world, each busy with his own life, with whom I had played, ridden, eaten far too much fruit in the sunny garden below the nursery windows (where I verily believe it was always fine and hot), and with whom I had risen at dawn in many a misty September morning, bent on collecting a great dish of mushrooms for breakfast, to surprise the house-mother with—a surprise that she must have been well accustomed to, but which she never failed to express; she knew we should have been so disappointed had she seemed in the least degree to expect the never-failing dish, though she had a hard struggle to be duly elated and not say one word about the draggled skirts and wringing wet stockings and boots, which she knew were reposing upstairs and would be shown to her in due course and with much wrath by Susan, to whose lot it always fell to remedy our dilapidations, which she used to say were always worse when I was there to rush about with the boys and lead them into mischief and dirt of all kinds.

There can be nothing more extinct on this earth than that dear old nursery, closed nearly twenty years ago and utterly swept away, but I can never think of it without becoming young again—without being the eldest of that small flock and worshipped as only five small boys can worship a London cousin much older than themselves, who yet could enter into all their games and excursions with the zest of a girl who has never tried living in the country, and sees only the poetical side of it; and without remembering the happiest of happy homes, where I cannot recollect a cross word, a disagreeable day, or anything but the noise of the boys rushing about, the scent of a thousand flowers, the planning of a hundred picnics, and a delightful sense of summer and sunshine that can never be forgotten, and that has influenced more lives than mine—more even than the generous, hospitable master and mistress will ever know—though perhaps he does in the rest he won so worthily and in the Heaven that must hold anyone who was as generous and good as he was to the many, many relations with whom he filled his house, and to whom he always gave a hearty welcome.

But no doubt there are a great many other nurseries just like this one—and, indeed, I know of several—so I would beg my readers to bear with me while I speak of these rooms, and beg them not to make a clean sweep of the nursery altogether until they are positively obliged to do so, not because there may be other babies to come, but because the nursery is useful for a thousand things, and it makes such a dreadful difference in a house when the room is completely altered and turned into a room for the maid who takes the place of the nurse, perhaps, or into a sitting-room for the girls or boys. Don’t let this be done, dear readers, until you are absolutely crowded out, because you will be miserable, and because you can never tell that the room may not be wanted as a sanitorium; an upstairs sitting-room, a refuge for our grandchildren, should we have married children, and should they be coming to stay with us, and bring their babies in due course of time; while the room having been decorated and furnished as a nursery is that and nothing else, and would have to be completely altered, should we settle to do away with it altogether.

Now, I want you to look just for a moment at the picture I have had drawn here of an empty nursery and see how admirably it is adapted for the purpose, and how cruel it would be to sweep away all these corners and shelves. You will notice how the cupboard fills in the recess between the fire and the wall, and you will see how a doll’s-house should be arranged, and then, I am sure, you will think twice about weeding out all this, and doing away with things that may give pleasure to future generations, particularly when we must all number among our acquaintances people with children, who come to tea, and will enjoy their tea twice as much if the children can be relegated to old nurse and the room where all is prepared for the small guests, who will for the moment take the place of those who are still children to us, albeit they are as old as we were when we began housekeeping ourselves, and set up a nursery with the pride and consequence inseparable from that most important step; while we can look hopefully forward to other small visitors who will be delighted to play with ‘mother’s old toys,’ and to hear things about that mother’s childhood, which can only be told them by an authority on the subject.

The nursery I have had sketched here is, of course, a much more expensive and elaborate room than could be suggested to folks with small incomes, but will serve as an example, I hope even in little houses, although, as those were amply catered for in my first book, I do not feel so bound to consider them as I did then. I should always have a real dado in any nursery. The one used here is of Indian matting, which is as neat and clean after ten years’ use as it was the day it was put up. By the way, a dado should be secured at the top with rather a heavier rail than the one illustrated, and this should be screwed on, not nailed. The screws can be removed at any moment, and the dado taken down. In the case of a cretonne dado this could be washed at any moment, while stuff or matting could be brushed or shaken; but I have taken down matting after ten years on a wall, which was sized before the matting was put up, and have never found the smallest dirt behind it, while the wall remained absolutely intact for that space of time, and, indeed, is as good as new now, after fifteen years’ wear, at least, I hear it is; unfortunately we have moved twice since then, and I cannot possibly inspect the matting to verify this statement for myself as I should like to do; but ten years is a long time, and, in these roving days of ours, when all too rarely do houses descend from father to son, is quite space enough for most of us.

Above the matting—which should be the kind sold by Treloar, in Ludgate Circus, for 35s. the roll of 40 yards—can be put any pretty blue paper. Pither’s new blue bay-tree paper, at 1s. 6d., is charming, and is of a colour that