Let us then tacitly agree to preserve the fine and simple integrity of the bath-room, with its slight, almost unnoticeable variations in wall-paper and the choice and arrangement of its normal impedimenta. Surely we do not want the home of the porcelain tub to express any single, compelling, individual personality: to say, in effect, 'I am H. Titherington Lee's bath-room,' or 'Betty Martin's,' rather than, as now, 'I am the Bath-Room.' Let Mr. Lee, if he will, have his initials, H. T. L., in gold on his tooth-brush: but let him not have them lettered on the white porcelain of the tub, or woven, instead of BATH, into the rug in front of it.

Uniformity, indeed, might comfortably be carried a little further, so that all bath-rooms should be equally warm and sunny of a winter's morning. One might think, sometimes, that people who build houses had considered the bath-room after everything else. The plans seem complete, and yet there is a vague conviction that something important has been left out. They go over them again and again, room by room: surely everything is as it should be—but the vague conviction still haunts them, and they have to put it out of their minds by force. The house is built: they move in, and somebody decides to take a bath. He starts for the bath-room. Presently his voice is heard, annoyed, astonished, and finally alarmed, anxiously shouting for the rest of the family. Together they go over the house from top to bottom. There is no bath-room! Luckily, on the coldest side of the house and far away from the furnace, there is a small hall bedroom intended for an emergency. The emergency has arrived: the hall bedroom is called for. In the shortest possible time the nearest plumber and carpenter make it over into a home for the tub.

But the ideal bath-room will have a southeasterly exposure, and the new-risen sun, that saw young Adam bathing in the Garden of Eden, will look cheerily in and add a sun bath. Place it not too near the guest chamber, for your guest is not sorry to be met on his way thither, clad in that gorgeous and becoming robe in which otherwise you will never see him. And do not clutter it, as some do, with extraneous objects. I remember a bath-room in which stood incongruously a child's rocking-horse. It gave the tub a kind of instability: and every time I looked at the rocking-horse, it seemed to rock.

AT HOME IN THE GUEST CHAMBER

ABOUT twenty-five years ago the late F. Marion Crawford came to lecture in a New England city: he was entertained in one of the most charming houses, given an afternoon reception, and led to the guest chamber, where he was left alone to rest until it should be time to appear at the lecture hall. It was an impressive guest chamber, furnished in rare colonial mahogany; but the day after, the family looked at it and suddenly wondered, with misgivings, how Mr. Crawford had managed his resting. He was an unusually tall, large man. Had he, they asked each other, rested on the dignified four-poster bed?—and if so, how considerately he had removed all traces of his little holiday! Or had he rested on either of the rare old colonial chairs—or both together, using one for his feet? They were a joy to look at, but hard, straight-backed, and unpromising resting places for a large literary man storing energy to deliver a lecture. Had he rested on the floor? It was a refulgently polished floor, but Mr. Crawford might have softened it by putting two of the rugs together and rolling up a third for a pillow. If so, how courteously he had restored the rugs to their normal positions! The final conclusion was that he had rested sitting bolt upright on one rare old colonial chair until he could bear it no longer, and then sitting bolt upright on the other. He never came back; but it was decided in the family that the next distinguished person left alone to rest in the guest chamber should at least have a rocking-chair.

At that period guests were not expected to stay in a guest chamber longer than was necessary to sleep, wash their faces and hands, brush their hair, and change their clothes. It was, literally, a spare room. If you came to visit, you were supposed to come because you wished to be with the family as much as possible, and only the most needful provision was made for your separate existence. If you were a lady, you might retire for a while in the daytime, and lie down on the bed. But no gentleman had this privilege: only at bedtime could he go to bed, unless unexpectedly taken so ill that he had to be put there, and the doctor sent for. The guest who left behind a suspicion of tobacco smoke in the lace curtains left also the suspicion that this was no gentleman—still more, no lady! Stern neatness and tidy utilitarianism characterized the guest chamber: its double bed must be comfortable, its bureau commodious, its wash-stand provided with fresh towels and a new cake of pleasingly scented soap. As for pictures and bric-à-brac—it was a fine place to store a present without offending the kind-hearted giver.

But this period is passing away: a new thought has come in, that the guest should feel at home, day or night, in the guest chamber, and human ingenuity is making the place so comfortable that it may soon be difficult to tempt guests out of it except at meal-times. Already, in some cases, it has become necessary to serve breakfast in the guest chamber. It is a home within a home, an apartment (with breakfast) of one or more rooms and bath, in which the temporary tenant pays no rent, lunches and dines with the family, and is expected (following the apartment hotel custom) to tip the house servants. There is, to use a shocking but expressive figure, one fly in his ointment—the extra and superfluous twin bed. He cannot escape from it. In the daytime it is a constant reminder that he is, after all, a stranger in a strange place; nor can he deceive himself with the idea that he keeps this extra cot for company. He is the company. In the night, if he happens to awake and turn on that side, it surprises and startles him with its suggestion of a ward in a hospital.

But do not try to eliminate the extra bed by rolling the twins together. Sleeping, you will forget. And when, instinctively, you seek the middle of your luxurious couch, the twins (unless you have thought to bind them leg to leg with a couple of neckties) will separate, and you will be rather emphatically reminded of what you have done, by falling out of bed between them.

I remember a guest chamber of the earlier régime in which the literary interests of the guest were catered to by an engraving of the desk at which Dickens wrote as it looked after Dickens was dead. Nowadays this is not sufficient. Books there must be, as well as a desk for the guest to write at while he is still alive, with plenty of stamps and stationery, ink, pens, pencils, rubbers, calendar, blotters, a bottle of mucilage, sealing-wax, candle, seal, dictionary, Thesaurus, and Mr. Bartlett's Book of Quotations. Here, indeed, is a little library in itself; but the books unfortunately are not such as the average guest is likely to pick up, with an exclamation of delight, and take to the fireside. Nor, if we confess the truth, does the guest often take much pleasure in the classical literature which his host often provides for him: he prefers his own meditations to those of Marcus Aurelius. Many persons can not read classical literature; and there is no little truth in the conclusion of the poet (first published in 'The Mother's Assistant, The Young Lady's Friend, and Family Manual,' Boston, 1852),—

When Caesar was a conqueror the Giraffe first was tamed,
And for processions long and gay this creature then was famed;
But no domestication kind could make him fit for use,
And Nature's laws for us to thwart is manifest abuse.