FROM KITCHEN TO GARRET
PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
LONDON

FROM KITCHEN TO GARRET

HINTS FOR YOUNG HOUSEHOLDERS
BY
J. E. PANTON
SEVENTH EDITION
London
WARD & DOWNEY
12 YORK STREET, CONVENT GARDEN
1890
TO
‘PRIMROSE’ ‘MOLLIE’ ‘FRÄULEIN’ ‘CHERRY BLOSSOM’
AND MANY OTHERS
WHO FROM CORRESPONDENTS HAVE BECOME FRIENDS
THROUGH THE MEDIUM OF
THESE HINTS TO YOUNG HOUSEHOLDS
This Work is Dedicated
BY THEIR ATTACHED MENTOR AND GUIDE
THE AUTHOR

PREFACE.

In presenting this book in a completed and augmented form to the public, I think a few words of explanation are necessary, lest the way in which the chapters are written may lay me open to a charge of egotism.

About two years ago I began writing a series of short articles in the pages of the ‘Lady’s Pictorial’ on the absorbing subject of housekeeping, meaning to confine myself strictly to the house and home of the British matron who begins life with little money and less experience, never thinking anything more would come of them than a mere temporary access of work for a few weeks; but I had not begun them for more than a month when, through the office of the paper, a regular and increasing mass of correspondence began to reach me, asking questions on every subject under the sun, from the proper management of a house and the feeding of a baby to the fearful inquiry whether I thought a wife should leave her husband or not when she discovered all too late she liked somebody else better than she did her lord and master. Since then I have become a species of ‘mother confessor’ to hundreds of unknown and valued friends in all parts of the world. I have correspondents in New Zealand, India, America, and in all parts of the Continent, and they have demanded of me that I shall produce a book evolved from my articles and from the pages of ‘Answers to Correspondents,’ which have been my work and my great pleasure since the articles on the home began; and as they persist in asking for my experience and my opinions I am obliged to give them, though knowing and fearing I shall be accused of speaking everlastingly about myself; still I have never mentioned a thing I have not tried or experienced, nor spoken of a single chair, table, or, in fact, anything that I have not honestly and truly tried myself.

From my correspondence I have evolved quite a new profession, which I commend to any lady who has taste and may wish to earn her living, I go to people’s houses and advise them about their decorations, and tell them the best places to go to for different things; I buy things for country ladies, and write them long letters on every subject under the sun for a set fee, and have made some of the nicest friends possible through this means; and I feel sure that any lady who cares to take up the ‘profession,’ and is of sufficient social status to be above the suspicion of taking commission or bribes from tradespeople to advertise their wares, and who above all possesses a quick eye and a certain amount of taste, can make a good and steady income in a remarkably pleasant way, while a great future would be before any gentleman possessed of the same qualifications, for he could see to estimates for painting, repairing, &c., and could act as a buffer between the purchaser and the workman, and, being thoroughly acquainted with his business, would soon become the boon and benefactor, to the ordinary person who requires his house done up and furnished, who is much wanted, and that no lady can be, because of the necessary fighting powers and technical knowledge.

In connection with my work, we have now started a society for the employment of ladies who will either decorate a house entirely, make the chair-covers and curtains I recommend, or work at ladies’ houses at dressmaking and upholstering, so that I may justly pride myself on the fact that at least my particular column in the ‘Lady’s Pictorial’ has been of some small practical good already. The address of the ‘Workers’ Guild’ is 11 Kensington Square, W.

I may mention, in conclusion, that I have revised and rewritten the whole of the articles which appeared in the ‘Lady’s Pictorial,’ and in some cases entirely evolved new matter out of my inner consciousness; and if only the public extends to my book half the sympathy and appreciation I have received from my thousands of correspondents for my articles, I shall never regret the day when, at my editor’s request, I seized the sceptre and became the ruling genius of many and many an unknown home.

J. E. Panton.

The Manor House, Watford, Herts.

CONTENTS.

ILLUSTRATIONS.

FROM KITCHEN TO GARRET.

CHAPTER I.
CHOOSING A HOUSE.

In the following chapters I propose to give young housekeepers, just launching their bark on the troubled seas of domesticity, the benefit of the experience that has been bought by me, occasionally rather dearly, in the course of some eighteen or twenty years; for I have often been struck with amazement at discovering how few really practical guides there are that even profess to help newly married girls past those first shoals and quicksands that so often wreck the little vessel, or that spoil and waste so much that could have been usefully employed had knowledge stood at the helm, and experience served as a lighthouse to point out the rocks and narrows. Naturally, no one ever uses another’s experience entirely: to do so would make life too near perfection and too monotonous to be pleasant. Still, there are a hundred little hints that I have constantly been asked to give, a great many helps to household arrangement that I have bestowed on many of my young friends starting in life; and I trust I may not be considered unduly egotistical if I lay before my readers the result of some years of life, and a good deal of experience obtained by looking about me generally.

I shall propose in the first two or three chapters to sketch out some ‘notions,’ as our American cousins would say, about the questions of house-choosing and house-furnishing, I shall then pass on to the question of servants; then babies will have their turn; education, more especially of girls, will not be forgotten; and I shall endeavour to do my utmost to state plainly and describe accurately, not only how a house should be furnished, but how it should be managed and kept going, literally from garret to basement.

As very rich people can place themselves unreservedly in the hands of a professional decorator, and can moreover depend on their housekeepers afterwards for all details of domestic management, I shall begin by supposing the model couple who wish to choose a house and furnish it are not rich; if they were they need not come to me for hints, for they would be able to gratify every one of their own tastes, and need only discover the best and most expensive shops, where skilled assistants would be ready to hang expensive papers and brocades, and to fit up all the thousand and one things that fashion calls necessary, without any of my assistance. But neither are they very poor: they are young, happy, and have taste, and are rather disheartened at finding out what a very little way their money seems able to go. They have looked longingly at Persian and Turkey carpets, at beautifully designed paper and exquisite hangings, and have come home from a long day’s investigation of shop-windows that has almost made Edwin forswear matrimony altogether, and that has plunged Angelina into an abyss of despair that makes her snappish to her brothers and sisters, and brings a sad look into her mother’s eyes, who seems to see the first shadow ‘of the prison-house’ close in around her child, and yet is powerless to help her escape, because, poor dear soul, she has no means of doing so herself; being as she is the victim of the old régime of flock papers and moreen curtains and heavy mahogany, and being conscious, too, of the vast sums it cost her to start in housekeeping. However, I refuse to hear any grumblings at all, and demand calmly enough to know if I may see the house that our young folks mean to inhabit. Ten chances to one that they do not even know where it is likely to be: how then, I ask, can they possibly know what they will want, or what is likely to suit the house or the locality, or, indeed, any of the many things that are positively necessary to know, before as much as a roll of wall-paper can be bought or a chair or table purchased?

Here is hint number one. It is from not knowing and understanding the house in which one has to live, and through purchasing furniture simply because we like it, and not because it suits us or our domicile, that such mistakes are made. First know your house; then, and not until then, can you proceed to furnish it in a manner that will result in pleasure to you and your friends for as long as you live in it.

To young people like my couple, I would strongly recommend a house some little way out of London. Rents are less; smuts and blacks are conspicuous by their absence; a small garden, or even a tiny conservatory (the joys and management of which ought to have a chapter all to themselves), is not an impossibility; and if Edwin have to pay for his season-ticket, that is nothing in comparison with his being able to sleep in fresh air, to have a game of tennis in summer, or a friendly evening of music, chess, or games in the winter, without expense; and with Angelina’s absence from the temptations of shop-windows in town, where, if she does not know of anything she wants when she goes out for her aimless walk, she soon sees something that she cannot resist, which she buys just because she has the money in her pocket, and likes the look of an article she would never have thought of had she been outside the range of temptation.

Another reason for choosing the suburbs at the commencement of married life is that in this case the rival mothers-in-law and the rival families will not be running in and out perpetually; and neither will Angelina be always contrasting the old ease, plenty, and amusements in her sisters’ lives, and which used to be hers, with the somewhat straitened and monotonous existence that she must put up with until Edwin has made a mark in the world, and is able to keep his carriage and live in style. Granted, then, that the suburbs have been selected, the first few months of the engagement can be advantageously spent in running down on Saturday afternoons to divers ‘Parks’ to look at houses that sound so beautiful on paper, and are too often the very reverse in the reality, in sauntering in the neighbourhood of each ‘eligible residence’ and in endeavouring to discover what are the pros and cons of each, and in finding out the soil and the aspect, and if there are or are not any pretty walks to be found in the country round. Avoid clay; let no persuasions, no arguments, persuade you that clay—at all events suburban clay—can ever be anything save depressing and rheumatic. You may drain, you may dig, but clay is like a ghost that will not be laid, and that sooner or later asserts itself in the most unpleasant and decided manner possible.

One of the prettiest suburbs we know of is utterly spoiled by its clay soil. In warm days it depresses, in damp it chills; and in an east wind the soil looks so dreary, so parched, that the mere sight of it is wretched, while fog and mist hang over it all the winter, and sour the tempers and warp the minds of the inhabitants until there is a lack of hospitality and an amount of work for the doctors that is wonderful, if unpleasant to contemplate.

Of course, all the S. or S.W. and S.E. suburbs are the most fashionable and the most sought after; and although, to my mind, Penge and Dulwich are dreary and damp, they are evidently well supported and much lived in, but the higher parts of Sydenham are to be preferred; while Forest Hill, the higher parts of Lordship Lane, Elmer’s End—where there are some extremely pretty and convenient villas—and the best parts of Bromley, Kent, are all they should be. Still, to those who do not mind the north side of London, Finchley, Bush Hill Park—where the houses are nice to look at and excellently arranged—and Enfield are all worthy of consideration.

Edwin’s work and its locality must, after all give the casting vote, for, if it be at the West End, Liverpool Street Station is out of the question, and Victoria, is a sine quâ non, and, of course, he may choose to live in town. If he does, I should strongly persuade him not to be guided by fashion, and to prefer a good-sized, old, well-built house in an unfashionable locality, to a small, heated, stuffy, badly put together residence in one of the parts of town that are inhabited by those with whom he can never hope to associate.

Indeed, when I have seen the tiny hovels in Mayfair where ladies and gentlemen crowd together, and where their servants herd under tiles or in the damp, dark cellars, I have thought that Fashion and Folly were two names for one thing, and have had but a small opinion of those who could condemn themselves and their poor domestics to such an unhealthy and miserable existence, just because Park Lane is close by and it is fashionable!

Doubtless the great thing that strikes us when we are house-hunting is that if women architects could get employment houses would be far better planned than they are now. In each bedroom, it seems to me, that I have inspected—and their name is legion—the male mind that designed the rooms never took into consideration that a bed should not stand between the windows and the door; which, by the way, is always put so that the moment it opens the occupant of the bed has a full view of the passage or landing; he has given us no recesses in which we can put shelves, and by a judicious curtain arrangement do away with the necessity of buying large and expensive wardrobes; he puts the fireplaces where, if we are ill, we could not possibly enjoy ourselves with sitting over the fire and warming ourselves; and he gives us far too many windows as a rule, and almost ruins us in blinds and curtains, to prevent the neighbours from gazing at us when we are dressing.

He forgets cupboards, and in fact insists on producing month after month an excellent shell, but one that requires altering considerably by a lady before it really can be lived in at all; and I would strongly suggest that female architects for domestic architecture solely would be a great help to all who have to live in houses planned and executed by men who have no idea of comfort, and but small appreciation for the trifles light as air that make all the difference between that and great discomfort.

If Edwin be at all handy at carpentering he could do a great deal to make even a builder’s design much better—he could rehang doors and extemporise screens; but I look forward to a time when it shall be necessary for houses to be passed by a sanitary commission before they are allowed to be let at all; when all these discomforts will be minimised, and when dust-bin refuse and bad drainage shall be penal if used for foundations and put into houses; when the lesser evils of badly placed doors, windows, and fireplaces will be looked after, as making parts of what should be a perfect whole.

Before taking his house in the suburbs, Edwin must see he holds it on a lease that does not include structural repairs. He must give a properly authorised inspector, from a distance, a fee to inspect all the drains; he must examine the foundations and look to soil, see that the doors and windows really fit, and that the skirting board has not shrunk away from the flooring. He must look to the roof and the chimneys, and, if possible, get a character for it from the last tenant; and then, and then only, need he and Angelina come to me and say, ‘We have settled on our Paradise; now please come and see it and tell us what we had better buy first, and what we must do to furnish it and make it look as pretty as we intend it to do.’

And yet, even when Edwin and Angelina have at last settled on their house, and have sensibly inspected it from top to bottom, I should, long before buying any furniture, decide definitely which room was to be dining-room, which bedroom, and which drawing-room, and, being guided by the sunshine obtainable in each, rather than the builder’s plan, utterly refuse to enter a shop until I had made up my mind how the rooms are to be appropriated.

Sunshine is the very first necessary of life; without it sickness comes, low spirits are one’s portion, and a thousand and one tiny ailments hang about us, until we sum up a tremendous doctor’s bill, utterly ignorant that we could have cured ourselves comfortably had we had any sense, and dispensed with our blinds, regardless of the fading of our carpets and curtains; or moved our morning-room into the sacred precincts of the drawing-room, which obtains all the early sunshine, and has none at all during the hours when we should be sitting there. But the possession of a large and hideous, white marble mantelpiece and a tiled hearth to the ugly, wasteful grate says ‘drawing-room’ too plainly for the ordinary mind to rise above the builder’s dictum; and so a cheerful breakfast table is sacrificed, for conventionalities that I, for one, never see without longing to disregard, simply because of their family likeness to every one else’s possessions, and gloom and low spirits seize their victim, and work their wicked will, sending off the husband to town with an aching head, and causing the wife a long, laborious morning of snapping at servants and children, simply because she had not begun her day with a proper amount of sunshine. I could fill a whole chapter with praises of the life-giver, the mighty, beautiful sun; and whenever I see blinds hardly raised, or carefully adjusted to save the furniture, I know that I shall find inside those guarded windows faded cheeks, even if the chairs are fresh, and weary, tired people, who are hardly aware what sort of a day it is outside, and who are shivering over a fire that would not be wanted were the fire nature has given us allowed to do its work. Therefore, do not be guided in your choice of rooms by the fact that the builder has made a sunless, dark-looking room the dining-room, and a cheerful, light, and pretty chamber the drawing-room. The white marble mantelpiece does not matter one bit.

I can soon alter that, and a tiled hearth is not such a dear or precious luxury that one cannot afford to put in another in the drawing-room, and it is extremely nice to have a hearth where we can put down our plates and dishes to keep hot should any one be late; and the other details are generally so small in their differences that I am sure there is no reason why we should not have strength of mind to be different to our next-door neighbour, who most probably has taken things as she found them, and in consequence is rarely, if ever, without a headache.

Even in the smallest houses in these days there is generally a third room, and this I should advise being kept entirely to sit in. I cannot imagine anything nastier than to sit in a room in which one has one’s meals; the mere worry of seeing them laid would annoy me so that I don’t think I should be able to enjoy them afterwards; and then nothing seems to me to quite clear away the terrible sensation, and smell of meals, that appear to saturate the walls of any room where food is constantly served, while the additional fire that seems the only reason that compels people to remain all day in one atmosphere is paid for over and over again by the extra warmth of the house itself, and the satisfactory manner in which damps and draughts are exorcised, while no one can tell the advantage it is to health to have a change of rooms, and to sit in a place where food and the evil odours attending meals never can come.

And here let me impress upon you, my readers, always to be guided by common sense, not by fashion and conventionalities; to do a thing because it is healthy and sensible, not because Mrs. Jones next door and Mrs. Smith over the way do it; to buy a thing because it is required, because it is pretty and suitable to your house and your means, not because it is ‘so very expensive,’ and so can never become ‘common,’ or because it is the ‘very last thing out’; and, above all, do not mind taking advice and using your eyes, being quite sure that older folks, even if they are stupid and slow-going, have probably seen more and know more than you do, simply because their lives have been longer by a great many years than yours are at present. And do not be above letting other people have the use of your talents, for the world would be much nicer and happier altogether if we were not all so profoundly selfish and exclusive, and were not so desperately afraid of soiling ourselves and our garments by rubbing shoulders against anything or any one to whom we can apply the word ‘common.’

I myself should like to see every beautiful thing common. I should love to know that all the world saw, possessed, and cared for art colours and art furniture, and had nice tastes, and I look forward to a time when even our poor brethren will appreciate all the inexpensive lovelinesses that are to be had now by those who know where to get them, and I trust that some day free art exhibitions and lectures may teach them what real beauty is, and so enlighten and enliven lives that at present are of the dullest and most sober description.

In stating that life itself may be changed by sunshine and by cheerful surroundings, and that even the bitter lot of the poor would be bettered by art, I am aware I lay myself open to the same jeers that greeted the Kyrle Society—that blessed society that, regardless of cold water, goes on its way, giving of its talents to the sick and needy; but I maintain my position for all that, and regardless of the ridicule levelled at them, anent sunflowers and dadoes taking the place of bread and clothes, I point to the hospital wards, transformed from bare whitewashed prisons into artistic, charming, home-like rooms, and I should like to have the statistics given me of all who have recovered there, and the time they took to recover in, in the two different aspects of the walls, being perfectly certain that there would be more and quicker recoveries in the reign of the Kyrle Society than when the wearied, suffering creatures had nothing to look at or think about save their own painful, cruel lot.

Or if you wish another example still, take the well-known famous description of the sour tempers and hard days possessed and lived by Thomas Carlyle and his wife, and then go and inspect the house in which they lived together for some thirty-eight years. The house itself is delightful—an old-world place, full of beautiful corners—and could be made charming with a little money and taste, but the hideous paper and paint still lingering behind them, the dark windows, in some cases half-filled with ground glass to keep out the view of a building that looks singularly like a workhouse—all accounted to me for a great deal of Mrs. Carlyle’s ill-health and low spirits, and for a vast quantity of Mr. Carlyle’s dyspepsia and ill-tempered behaviour; for he could be nothing else in sunless rooms and with walls papered in the ugly, depressing manner in which he doubtless considered them satisfactory, or, still more likely, thought that any paper did as long as the walls were covered.

Therefore, in selecting house and furniture, and choosing your rooms and appropriating them, remember the first thing is to be cheerful. Dark days will come in life to us all, but they will not be hopeless and too dreadful to be endured if we cultivate a cheerful, contented spirit, and insist on having cheerful surroundings.

Do you recollect, I wonder, the orthodox dining-rooms of twenty-five years ago?—the heavy, thick curtains of red or green cloth or moreen damask; the tremendous mahogany sideboard, generally with a cellarette underneath it, which, I recollect, made an admirable tomb in which to bury one’s dolls or obnoxious books, generally triumphantly taken from the schoolroom; the chairs that required two people to lift them; the carpet that seemed immovable, and that was too heavy to be shaken more than once a year; and the woolly-bear hearthrug that always smelt of dust, and that was a receptacle for all sorts of cinders, toy-bricks, leaden soldiers, and bones dragged in and buried there by a delinquent dog or cat? Why, the mere shaking of that rug once a week resulted in the discovery of all sorts of treasures that had been lost, and the dust that came out was enough to choke the neighbourhood, and doubtless would have done so had the other inhabitants not all been engaged with their own. Ah! if you do not all of you remember the dining-room of the past, I do; but never without a shudder, or a wonder how we managed to live in such a dark and dusty atmosphere, where work, reading, drawing, and writing all had to be hustled out of sight and out of the way of the parlour-maid, who came to ‘lay the cloth,’ and renew the foul odours, which had only just been exorcised, which breakfast had left behind it to poison the morning with. I should think that domestic furniture was at its very lowest depths of despair then; but that is thirty years ago, or perhaps forty, and nothing turned the tide for quite twenty years!

In the beginning of those evil days the graceful furniture of Chippendale and Sheraton was pushed away and consigned to attics, or sold cheaply at country auctions to fit up inn parlours or rooms behind shops; and the heavy ‘handsome’ furniture of mahogany and damask bore down upon us, and made us for a time the most depressed of people, heavy with our ugly furnishings, and the mock of all nations that had better taste and lighter hearts than we were possessed of.

It would take too long to trace the gradual development of taste and cheerfulness since then, neither do I know to whom is due our present state of emancipation and love of pretty things, but even sixteen years ago light was only just beginning to be vouchsafed to us. Now it is impossible to buy an ugly thing in good shops, and each person’s house is no longer the reflection of one particular upholsterer’s shop or of one particular style; but it is a carefully arranged shrine, cared for and looked after, and judiciously managed by the owner, who, if she have not taste herself, is now shamed into using some one else’s, by the contrast she cannot help seeing her home presents to all the others into which she enters; and one of the most hopeless people I know, who began life with gilt legs to her chairs and a collection of family plate (plated) on her sideboard, has become unobtrusive, even if she can never be tasteful, simply by seeing how different her own notions were to those of the cleverer people with whom circumstances brought her into contact!

However, this chapter will become too long if I relate any more ‘fearful examples,’ and, impressing on my readers the great necessity of sunshine and cheerfulness in their scheme of furnishing, I will pass on to the subject of the house itself, which must be most carefully chosen after long and deliberate inspection thereof, as I remarked before; one of the most necessary of all mottoes to be recollected in starting in life being, ‘Do nothing in a hurry. More haste, less speed.’

CHAPTER II.
THE KITCHEN ARRANGEMENTS.

The other day I was asked, as I so often am by young couples, to go with them to look over a house they had just taken, and to give them some advice on the decoration and management generally thereof; and when we had thought about all the pretty colours and graceful draperies we considered suitable, I asked to look at the kitchen department, and I was truly horrified to discern that my young folks had only been into the kitchen once, and had no idea of its capabilities.

I at once departed to look at it, and found all the accommodation for the unfortunate maids consisted of a square box, one half stove, the other half door, a couple of shelves for all the bridal glass and china, and a larder in which one could have placed the meat, butter, and bread without moving from the fireside, and which, useless enough in winter, would be doubly so when summer came, and added another trial to those of the already overburdened cook. However, the agreement was signed and the house taken for five years, during which, I am quite certain, no servant would remain a moment over her month, and in consequence of which that establishment will, I know, be in a continual state of misery and turmoil.

Of course one can hardly expect young people to think of these prosaic and disagreeable details for themselves, but they are most necessary details for persons to consider. Personally I would much rather regard life as a smooth chariot gliding along a rose-embowered road, propelled by some mysterious and wonderful power called Love, who is, of course, entirely ignorant of anything save kisses and blisses. I do not want in the very least really to know how dinner is cooked, how houses are managed, and the very names of chairs and dusters are properly obnoxious to me—or rather would be if we could only do without them. But, alas! we cannot; we must be clean, we should be healthy, and it is imperative that we should have kitchens and be warmed and fed; and, as fairies are extinct and brownies no longer appear and do work mysteriously and pleasantly before we are up in the morning, even a bride must be told about these unpleasant localities, and must learn to take an interest even in her scullery and the position of her dust-bin. Therefore, on the principle of getting rid of our disagreeable duties first, we will begin with hints for kitchen management before thinking about the purchase of the rest of the furniture; for it is a very good rule to buy what we must have first, and then keep any surplus we may have to spend afterwards; and we will begin with the kitchen, for that department is always the most uninteresting to the young housekeeper, for she has only a certain amount of money to spend on everything, and she grudges, I am sure, every pound she has to spend on pots and pans, that she thinks would be so useful if added to the small sum she has at her disposal, for extras and ornaments in the other rooms in her house.

If their household consist of two maids and Edwin and Angelina alone, their batterie de cuisine need be neither an extensive nor expensive one, for after a lengthy experience of maidens and their ways I have come to the conclusion that the fewer things they have the fewer they will spoil, and that we are far more likely to have clean saucepans and pots if there are none to put aside and no others to use, if, as the maid thinks, she has not time at her disposal for the moment in which to clean them. Now if she have only the saucepans in actual use they must be cleaned as soon as they have been used, or the food will most certainly tell tales of her.

The position of the kitchen in a house makes an immense amount of difference in the work, for if it be situated underground it makes quite one servant’s work difference. Fortunately builders are more and more inclined to think of this, and it is now rare to find in a new house the unpleasant and unhealthy arrangement that exists in most London houses. First of all, the staircase to the kitchen is always a dreadful source of worry. We must cover the stairs to deaden the noise, and the wear and tear is so great that the covering has to be renewed well-nigh yearly if we are in any way to preserve a tidy appearance. The best material to use on these stairs is a species of harshly woven Dutch carpeting. It is made in art colours, and is about 1s. 6d. a yard; or Treloar’s pretty crimson cocoanut matting, which is a trifle less in price, and lasts more time, when, if it should show signs of wear, it can once more be covered with oilcloth, and then I think the stairs will look as nice and keep as tidy as long as possible.

If there be any passages in and round the kitchen and servants’ apartments generally, I have discovered that a most excellent plan here is to have a high dado of oilcloth, headed by a real dado-rail painted black, and then papered above with one of the blue and white washable papers that resemble tiles, are moderately inexpensive, and always clean and bright. At one time my passages in those regions were my despair; they were narrow, and bits and corners—paper, plaster, and all—were continually knocked out in the most depressing way, especially at the back door, where, moreover, every boy who came for orders or with parcels solaced himself while waiting by leaning his greasy head or putting his dirty hands on the wall-paper, until the whole place looked disgraceful almost before the paste was well dry. I was at my wits’ end. Cretonne and matting were decidedly out of place. At last the idea of oilcloth came into my head, and for six years it has now been up, and is as good as the day it was purchased. I continued this up the back staircase, with very favourable results as regards wear and tear, for a box knocking against it does not hurt it in the least, and any marks can be rubbed off at once with a dry duster. The oilcloth is not stretched too tight, and it is nailed top and bottom, then secured at the top with the dado-rail, which, being made of what is technically called ‘scantling,’ is most inexpensive; a neat pattern is chosen in oak-browns.

The oilcloth made like an old Roman mosaic would of course be preferable as far as appearance goes, but this costs double, and therefore I was obliged to have an ordinary and commonplace-looking one instead; but should the æsthetic eye revolt against the ugly colours of cheap oilcloth, I may mention it can be painted any colour easily, and this can make it at once pretty to look at.

I am of opinion that such a dado would be a great thing in the kitchen itself, where the walls so speedily become soiled by the heat from the hot-water pipes that the kitchen soon becomes dismal for the servants to sit in. I do wish it would enter into the plan of even quite a small house to have a tiny room where the servants could sit and work, or have their meals, out of the kitchen atmosphere; and then perhaps I should not mind the look of the kitchen quite so much; but even in a large house there is seldom a room one can set aside for this purpose, and often enough the only place a maid has to live in is the one in which all the cooking is done, and where, winter and summer alike, a large fire has to be kept going from morning until night.

But until that happy day arrives we can make the orthodox kitchen almost a model one, with a dado of oilcloth as high as we can get it, and a light varnished paper above the dado; the varnishing allows of constant washing, and though this is, of course, an expensive process, it insures cleanliness, and, the first outlay once made, it does not require renewing for some years. The ceiling, however, should be whitewashed, with the scullery walls and ceiling, and those of the cellars, &c., regularly once a year—about May. Nothing should be thought more necessary than this; and once a year, when this is done, the mistress should overlook every single possession she has, comparing them with a list made at the time she entered the house, which she should never let out of her own possession, and which she should alter from time to time, as things are broken or lost or bought.

The most important thing now to consider is the grate, and nowhere, I think, does the ordinary landlord or builder ‘skimp’ more than in this; and let me ask any young bride to put her pride in her pocket here, and to consult her mother, or the last bride but four, or any one who has had a grate in her own possession, before she passes the grate that the landlord has provided her with. Of course I can only hope any new householder will take advice; the dear things always know so much better from theory than we do from practice, and are never going to make the mistakes we did, and from which sprang the knowledge we are as anxious to give them as they are unwilling to take, that I can only humbly ask them to see about the grate before they really put themselves in its power, and I beg them to insist on having a new one; for on no other portion of the house does so much of our comfort depend, a bad grate spoiling the cook’s temper and wasting the food horribly, while a good one is an endless treasure, of which we really cannot make too much.

If our young folks are too proud to ask advice, let them go to Steel and Garland’s, on the Holborn Viaduct, where I have seen some most picturesque kitcheners, which I must confess to hanker after in a manner that perhaps is not right; but I cannot help it, they look so charming, and are, I believe, so satisfactory in their working. They have blue-tiled backs, and have also delightful ovens and a broad expanse over the fire that would heat any amount of saucepans at the same time; and if Angelina goes to live in her own house, I should certainly recommend her to see these before buying any other kitchen grate. They are most economical as regards coal; and if Angelina be wise enough so to manage her cook as to impress upon her what an excellent fire can be made and kept up in a kitchener using the small coal almost like dust, that is so very inexpensive, and that the best Wallsend need not be taken for the purpose, she will soon save the cost of her stove over and over again in the difference in the price of the material she uses to keep it going.

Of course this small coal can be burned in a kitchener that has not blue tiles, and is a simple, ugly thing; but these are not as reliable as a good stove is, and the ovens burn and spoil so much, owing to the inferior iron of which they are made, that an effort is worth making to secure a good and reliable grate, else Edwin’s dinner may occasionally not be quite as nice as could be wished for him to come home to. But, cheap grate or dear grate, never allow for one moment that an odour therefrom should pervade the house. This may require a battle; but it is one to be won by the mistress if she exhibit firmness, and, above all, a due knowledge of her business as manager of the household. The terrible and sickening smell that so often has been known to fill a house simply comes from grease having been allowed to fall on the oven plates inside. This waxes hot, and then is followed by the odour, which there is nothing like anywhere besides. To obviate this, a cook should always carefully look after any spot or drop of grease, and if by any chance the oven has become foul, it must be cleansed by burning some hay or straw in it; but this need not occur at all if the cook be commonly careful, any more than that green-water need smell, if a small crust of bread be placed in the water while it is boiling, and then the water should at once be emptied away into a corner of the garden, or down the sink if there be no garden, when a little carbolic acid should be added, which would take away the odour at once. These may appear very trivial matters to write about, but a great deal of our comfort and, in consequence, of our happiness depends upon these trifles. I know nothing more disagreeable and trying than a bad smell, and if Edwin comes home to a house reeking of dinner and the oven, what wonder that he flies to his pipe and wishes himself back in his club; while his wife cannot possibly smile and look pleased to see him, when she is suffering untold miseries from the refractory grate, and a cook who would be only too glad to save her the odours if only she knew how.

I am no advocate for mistresses spending their lives in a perpetual harassment of their unfortunate servants, but there is one thing that should never be left to the tender mercies even of the best servant that ever lived; and that is the sink, or, in fact, any drain that may be in the kitchen regions. I cannot tell how it is, but a domestic appears to me to be born into the world bereft of any sense of smell. They never can smell anything. You will go into the kitchen and discover an odour enough to appal you, and you will say, ‘What is this terrible smell, I wonder?’ but your cook will reply, ‘Smell, mum? Oh, I don’t smell anything; perhaps it have drifted in at the window.’ But do not be daunted by that. Do not for one moment think you are wrong and she is right, but persevere, and hunt that smell down, and ten chances to one you will find something that requires your immediate attention in the sink line, or else that, despite most stringent orders, cook has started a private dust-bin, and has put away and forgotten something that is breeding a fever under your very nose.

Insist upon a regular flushing of every drain or sink every week, as a matter of course; and I should advise you to see this done for yourself, and, furthermore, that you should yourself supplement the flushing by using liberally some disinfectant. If you do this yourself, keeping the disinfectant locked up and labelled ‘Poison,’ there will be supplied to your servant’s mind a reason why you should personally superintend the flushing part of the business, and she will not then have the idea in her mind that is so often in the mind of the ordinary servant, that you are spying after her because you cannot trust her. The drains are far too important a matter, you can tell her, to leave to any one, and therefore you must see after them yourself. Sanitas in saucers is a very good disinfectant, and smells most pleasantly; and permanganate of potass diluted largely with water is excellent to put down the sinks and drains themselves; but there is no smell about this, so I, personally, prefer carbolic or chloride of lime, because then I know for certain that something of the kind has been used, and the rather pleasant odour from the disinfectant also seems to send away at once any disagreeable smell that may have been hanging about. In the sinks themselves should be kept a large lump of soda; this should weigh half a pound or more, and be renewed every day or two; this prevents the grease from the saucepans clogging the pipes, as such a large piece dissolves very slowly, and all the water that passes over the soda serves to cleanse the pipe in a most satisfactory way. It is always an excellent thing to set aside particular days and hours for different duties. They are not half so likely to be slurred or omitted as they are in a house where any time does for anything. Therefore Saturday, immediately after the orders have been given, is an excellent time for seeing to the drains. Saturday morning most people are at home, and a quarter of an hour takes little out of the morning, while a good deed has been done, and the house has been purified for Sunday.

And here let me just for one instant dwell on the great necessity of regularity, order, and, above all, early rising, in a small household. If you lie in bed, Sundays or weekdays, things cannot possibly prosper with you; you cannot possibly either keep beforehand with life if you live in a muddle or breakfast late; and should you be late on Sundays you not only hurry to church yourself, or stay away altogether—a wretched habit—but you prevent your servants attending, or allow them to go when the service has begun, and they are too hurried and worried to properly appreciate the weekly rest that should be such a help to them. Every member of the household and every visitor should be punctual at the breakfast table, and nothing save real illness should excuse a breakfast in bed. A headache is more often cured by getting up than by remaining in the bedroom atmosphere; and be sure of this, lying in bed upstairs means waste, laziness, and unsatisfactory behaviour generally in the regions of the kitchen. Hence I feel I cannot say too much against it, or in favour of regularity, punctuality, and early rising, without which excellent qualities no household can get along practically or become anything save a place of hopeless muddle.

Though it would be waste of space to write out an exact list of kitchen utensils in these days, when every respectable firm publishes one at the end of their catalogue, and which, by the way, may generally be halved as regards the quantities with advantage, it may not be out of place here to give a few general hints on the subject. And we may begin by stating that ‘plenty makes waste,’ and that ‘enough is as good as a feast,’ and then we will make up our minds to purchase only just sufficient kitchen articles for the cook’s use, at all events until we know our cook and learn if she be to be trusted; though even then I see no reason why she should have more material at her command than she can use; for I believe this idea of superfluity has done more harm in the kitchen than enough, no servant being sufficiently strong-minded to resolutely put aside anything she can do without.

In a small and, shall I say, impecunious household it is not so much what we want as what we can do without that has to be considered; and it is really astonishing on how little we can ‘get along,’ as far as mere existence is concerned, if we resolutely turn our back on all that is not positively necessary for us, although I must confess that under such circumstances life is certainly not worth living, and has to be a very bare and barren matter altogether; and I hope that Angelina, at all events, will not have to live quite such a Spartan existence as this; still, great care must be exercised, especially in the kitchen, if she be to have a pleasant time of it among nice and pretty things.

In the first place, Angelina must show her cook that she really does know her duties as mistress of a household, and she must be able to hold her own when cook demands extravagant supplies; while at the same time she must not expect a quart of milk a day to suffice for a household consisting of a baby, two servants, the master and mistress, and last, but not least, two cats, as a friend of mine did; but she must diligently study beforehand quantities of divers things, so that she may be ready when called upon to prove she really does know what she is talking of; and a judicious selection of kitchen utensils will point out to her cook at starting that her mistress has ideas of her own on the subject of household management.

Now six saucepans must suffice, and this is really a most liberal allowance, as four might be made to do; two must be nicely lined with enamel, and must be kept entirely for milk and white sauces, such as melted butter, for nothing else should ever be cooked in a saucepan that is required for delicate cookery. After a long experience, I must confess that no one’s kitchen utensils please me as much as Whiteley’s do; they are good and reasonable, and can be relied on to be as cheap and wear as long as any one else’s. Indeed, for these things he is really cheaper than any one I know of, and I now buy all there that I require for kitchen use. He supplies a list of goods suitable for different-sized houses; but no one requires, I think, all that he considers necessary, and a little weeding should be done from even his smallest list, according to the number of the rooms in the house. Still, these lists are a great assistance, and Angelina would do well to write for one before she finally makes up her mind what to order.

There are generally three or four prices quoted for nearly all domestic articles, such as fryingpans, gridirons, saucepans, &c., and it is safe to make it a rule to take a medium quality. At a shop you can trust, the very best, no doubt, must always be best, but ‘good enough’ for use and wear is to be our rule, and when you have discovered that such-and-such an establishment really tells you the truth, you may depend that for your purpose the medium quality will answer as well as anything, while even in some cases the lowest will occasionally be good enough for the purpose for which you require it. There are certain things no housekeeper should ever be without, and one is a bread-pan with a cover, and this is sometimes quite a difficult thing to procure. No one seems now to have time to put their bread in pans, and the milk in those nice white-lipped basins I can never see without longing to buy, but these two things should be insisted on in Angelina’s kitchen. The bread taken in to-day should not be used until to-morrow, and when received from the baker should be immediately put into the pan in the larder and covered over. This keeps it moist and fresh, and, without having the evil properties of new bread, is as pleasant to eat, which it could never be if left to dry in the hot kitchen, or to become dusty and dry, or may be even damp, on the larder shelf. The pan should be wiped out every morning with a clean cloth, and on no account should pieces be allowed to accumulate.

There is, I think, more bread wasted in an ordinary household than is quite pleasant to contemplate. Crusts are cut off and put on one side in the dining-room, and of course no one in the kitchen will look at them after that; or double the quantity is cut at luncheon and dinner that is required, and once more this is put on one side. Now, it is quite easy to calculate how much bread should be used in a small household, but it is very difficult to find out where the waste is when the establishment increases. Still it is possible, and I do hope Angelina will begin by impressing on her cook that she will not allow waste, nor what makes sometimes a fearful amount of waste, i.e. the calling at the back door of those dreadful people with carts, who want to buy bottles, or rags, or bones, or such like trifles; for these men often tempt young servants to thieve, and often enough, too, snatch up a spoon or fork, should one be lying about, while the servant’s back is turned, and she is searching for her hoard of things, none of which really belongs to her at all.

I recollect quite well one year, when I was at Bournemouth seeing these carts going about regularly to different houses morning after morning, and as my window faced the road, I had the curiosity to watch what they received, more than once. Opposite to me lived a family, the mistress of which had often enough lamented to me the fearful appetites possessed by her servants, and one day, about 8.15, just when I was going down to breakfast, I saw the cart arrive, and saw also half loaves of bread, ‘chunks’ of meat, and pieces of butter and bacon, all brought out in an unappetising manner together, and shunted into the cart. My friend’s breakfast-hour was half-past nine, so the cart had merrily gone on its way long before her blinds were drawn up; but the very next time she spoke of her servants’ gigantic capacities for putting away food, I ‘up and spake’ of what I had seen in such a way that the cart never called there again, and her bills were reduced to one-half in less time than it takes to tell of them.

The driver of that cart once stopped at my door and descended into the kitchen. Luckily for me, I was, as usual, writing at the window at my desk, and, seeing him come in, I waited a few moments, and then descended into the lower regions too, and found him eloquently persuading my good little cook to sell bones &c. to him, but she was refusing staunchly; and then I appeared, and though, I confess honestly, I was shaking with fright, and was only sustained by the knowledge that the gardener was cleaning the boots near by, I gave that man a ‘piece of my mind,’ and, informing him that it was he and his fellows who made young servants thieves, bade him begone, telling him that if ever I found him on my premises again I would give him in charge; which so alarmed him that he fled at once to other houses, doubtless vituperating me in his mind all the time; but that I did not mind, as long as he transferred himself and his kindly attentions somewhere else.

In a well-regulated household every morsel of food should be used; the bones always are useful for soup, and a ‘digester’ should be one of Angelina’s most indispensable possessions. This should always be at hand for stock; and excellent soups, than which nothing is nicer on which to begin one’s dinner, can be procured by aid of the digester, if Angelina has a thoughtful cook, who uses every morsel to advantage, and never throws away a bone, even a fish bone, all of which aid the soup, and save buying other provisions.

Care and thought are centred in the kitchen, and once Angelina has carefully trained her maid into nice ways, the house will go like clockwork, and that is why I should advise any young housekeeper to take young girls as household servants (not on any account, by the way, as nurses; no young nurse is worth her keep save as an under-servant); an ‘experienced cook’ quotes her experience, and Angelina, having none to fall back upon, trembles and is conquered; but with a bright, intelligent girl, Mrs. Beeton’s most excellent book on household management (as regards food), a little common-sense, and a mother who has brought her daughter up sensibly, Angelina can start on her way, quite certain that she and her maidens will work together in a pleasant and satisfactory manner, and that she will never be exposed to domestic earthquakes such as occur with ‘experienced servants,’ who, having brought themselves up in a big establishment where nobody cared for them, go into Angelina’s small one in order to get as much out of it as they can, regarding all mistresses as their natural enemies!

One more subject as regards the kitchen. Never allow, on any pretext, that a dust-bin or a ‘wash-tub’ is ever needed. With a kitchener every morsel of débris should be burned in the close grate; and a dust-bin is never a necessity to any one who knows her business, and is determined never to allow of the smallest waste. There is nothing a kitchener will not burn—remember that, please! and flatly refuse to allow a dust-bin in any part of the house; it only means that waste will go on ad libitum, and that dirt and untidiness are favoured by one’s cook.

CHAPTER III.
MEALS AND MONEY.

I am going to devote this chapter entirely to the matter of money—that is to say, to indicating how the income should be apportioned, and what it costs to feed a small family who are content with nice plain food, and who do not hanker after elaborate cooking and out-of-the-way dishes; in which case they must not come to me for advice, as I have really no information to give them; and to further indicate as far as I can—outside the limits of a cookery book—some of the meals that can be managed without either much fuss and worry and an undue expenditure of money and time.

If Angelina really intends to marry on an income varying between 300l. and 500l. a year, she must sit down and weigh the pros and cons most carefully. Dress and house-rent are the two items that have risen considerably during the last few years; otherwise everything is much cheaper and nicer than it used to be before New Zealand meat came to the front, and sugar, tea, cheese, all the thousand and one items one requires in a house, became lower than ever they had been before; and therefore, if she be clever and willing to put her shoulder to the domestic wheel, she can most certainly get along much more comfortably in the way of food than she used to do. For example, when I was married, sugar was 6d. a pound, and now it is 2d.; and instead of paying 1s. 1d. a pound for legs of mutton, I give 7½d. for New Zealand meat, which is as good as the best English mutton that one can buy. Bread, too, is 5½d.—and ought to be considerably lower—as against the 8d. and 9d. of seventeen years ago; and, besides this, there are a thousand-and-one small things to be bought that one never used to see, and fish and game are also infinitely less expensive, for in the season salmon is no longer a luxury, thanks to Frank Buckland, while prime cod at 4d. a pound can hardly be looked upon as a sinful luxury, and this is the price we paid in the season in the Central Fish Market, where fish is always to be obtained fresh, cheap, and in as great a variety as at any West End shop; while of course those detestable Stores, much as I personally dislike them, have done much for us in lowering the prices of grocers, who are always willing to give ready-money purchasers every advantage, the while they are civil, send the purchased articles home, make out their own bills, and take care their customers are not worried to death, as they are at the Stores by supercilious youths, who make the place a rendezvous, and simper with girls who have been sent to do shopping, and combine it with large instalments of flirtation. No, I must say I have not one good word for the Stores; and, furthermore, I detest them because, living as I do a little way out of town, I am persecuted on my return journeys with enormous parcels, of all sorts and descriptions, that jam one’s elbows, fall down incontinently on one’s best bonnet, and are pushed under one’s feet, until the twenty minutes’ travel are rendered purgatorial by people who will shop at the Stores, and are in consequence turned completely for the nonce into beasts of burden, all to save a very problematic shilling or two; but as cabs to and from the station have to be added to the fare to town, I venture to state they would be far better served by a local grocer, or by either Whiteley or Shoolbred, whose prices are the same as at the Stores, and whose carts come to one’s door. But these little points are just where the ordinary woman’s finance comes utterly to an end. She can readily comprehend that sugar at 2d. a pound is cheaper than sugar at 3d.; but tell her to add to the cost of this the fare to town, wear and tear of temper, gloves, and clothes, odd cabs, and the necessary luncheon, and she is floored at once. She recognises the 2d. as against the 3d. immediately, but she cannot grasp the rest; besides which, at the Stores she sees one hundred and one things that she buys simply because they are cheap, and not because she requires them in the very least; so if Angelina values her peace of mind let her eschew the Stores, and, instead, talk to her nearest grocer on the subject, and see what can be done with him before she goes elsewhere.

Now, I think, that 2l., or, at the most, 2l. 10s., should keep Angelina, Edwin, and the model maid per week in comfort, and yet allow of no scrimping; but in this case Angelina must put a good deal of common-sense in her purse as well as money. Meat for three people need not be more than 12s., 4s. for bread and flour, 2s. for eggs, 4s. for milk, half a pound of tea at 2s. 6d.—if they will drink tea—1lb. of coffee made of equal proportions of East India, Mocha, and Plantation, comes to about 1s. 7d., sugar 6d., butter (2lbs., enough for three people) 3s., and the rest can be kept in hand for fruit, fish, chickens, washing; and the thousand and one odds and ends that are always turning up at the most unpropitious moments; such as stamps, boot-mending (two items that have largely assisted in turning my hair grey), ink, paper, string, and, in fact, all those things that an unmarried girl rather fancies grow in the house, and that she is very much surprised to find have to be purchased.

In any case, let me implore Angelina to pay her books every week herself, and never on any account to run up bills anywhere for anything. Let her never be tempted to have any single thing that she cannot pay for on the spot; and she will live happily, and be able to ‘speak with her enemies’—if she have any—‘in the gate’; that is to say, she can boldly interview her tradespeople, knowing she owes them nothing, and coming cash in hand can demand the best article in the market, which is, after all, the due of those who go and buy for ready money and should never be given to those who will have credit. There is nothing so dear as credit—please remember that, my readers, and start as you mean to go on by paying for everything as you have it; and, above all, know from your husband what he can give you, and have this regularly once a month. If you are fit to be his wife at all, you are fit to spend his money, and to spend it, moreover, without the haggling and worrying over each item that is considered necessary by some men to show their superiority over their women folk, but which should never be allowed for a moment; and should our bride have a small income of her own, this should be retained for her dress, personal expenses, &c., and should not be put into the common fund, for the man should keep the house and be the bread-winner; but, alas! middle-class brides have seldom anything to call their own, their parents thinking they have done all they need for them, should they find them a husband and a certain amount of clothes.

I very much myself disapprove of the way middle-class parents have of marrying off their daughters and giving them nothing beyond their trousseaux; and I do hope that soon fathers and mothers will copy the French more in this matter of a dowry than they do now. I maintain that they are bound to give their daughters, beyond and over such an education as shall allow them to keep themselves, the same sum when married as they received when unmarried, so shall they be to a certain extent independent and have a little something to call their own. Why, in most cases, if Angelina wants to give Edwin a present she has to buy it out of his own money! Can there be a more unenviable position for a young wife, to whom very often the mere asking for money is as painful as it is degrading? It would not hurt any father to give his daughter 50l. a year, and the difference it would make in that daughter’s comfort and position is unspeakable; and would not be more than half what she would cost him were she to remain on his hands a sour old maid.

Another thing I disapprove of is placing the household books week by week or month by month under the husband’s inspection; it leads to endless jars and frets, and discussions; therefore, having talked matters over once and for all, discuss money no more until you require additions to your allowance as the family increases; or can do with less; only know always how matters are going in business, so as to increase or retrench in a manner suitable, should circumstances alter.

Domestic matters must, of course, be discussed now and again between husband and wife; but a sensible woman keeps these subjects in the background, and no more troubles her husband with the price of butter, or the cook’s delinquencies, than he does his wife over the more intimate details of his office, which he keeps for his clerks and his partners generally; while the day’s papers, the book on hand, people one has seen, are all far more interesting things than Maria’s temper, Jane’s breakages, or than the grocer’s bill, which, if higher than it ought to be, is Angelina’s own fault, and can only be altered by herself, and not by worrying Edwin.

Common-sense housekeeping can only be done if the eyes be constantly open to see and the ears to hear. Waste must never be allowed. No servant should be kept who wastes, and if there be no dust-bin, save for cinders, no pig’s tub, no man calling at the door for bottles, and, above all, if there be a mistress who is always on the alert to use anyone else’s experience, housekeeping need be nothing of a bugbear, and can be done at one quarter the price that it usually costs. But most girls marry in perfect ignorance of everything save the plot of the last novel, the music of the last opera, the fashion of the last dress, and undertake duties they neither care for nor mean to understand, seeing nothing beyond the wedding finery, which is far too often an occasion of almost criminal display, and that must indeed appear a mockery to the poor bride, who contemplates her foolish wedding dress and wishes profoundly she had the money it cost her.

The great curse now of English households is this seeming to be what you are not, this wretched pretending of 400l. to be 800l.; the shirking of work, domestic details, and common-sense housekeeping that characterises the bride of this day, who only wants to enjoy herself and spend a little more, see a little more gaiety than the last bride did, and who sees nothing holy in the name of wife, only a mere emancipation from the schoolroom; who wants to decorate a house, not make a home; and who sees in her children, not human souls to train for time and for eternity, but pretty dolls to dress, to attract attention, or tiresome objects to be got rid of at school at the earliest opportunity.

That marriage means much more than this is gradually borne in upon the butterfly, who either sobers down in the course of years, and becomes faded and worn and peevish; or else, impatient of control, she breaks all bounds, and the whole family is disgraced by an esclandre that is as terrible as it is preventible. With such women as this we have nothing to do; but many of these poor creatures would have been saved had they been brought up properly, so I trust, after all, my words on the subject of common-sense housekeeping will not be considered out of place.

Though they are certainly a little discursive, still they have to do with money emphatically, and that was the first part of the subject I proposed to treat of in this chapter, so before I leave it let me say just a few words on the best system of keeping accounts, a most necessary portion of any woman’s business as mistress of a household.

The best authority I know on the subject of accounts is a personal friend who began housekeeping many years ago on a very small and uncertain income. Her husband was a literary man, and had of course that most tiresome and extravagance-encouraging income—a fluctuating one; yet she told me only the other day she could tell to a sixpence what she had spent ever since she was married; that at the end of the year she always sat down, first with her husband, then with her grown-up daughters, and carefully went over each month’s expenditure, and in this way she was enabled to manage well, for a glance would show her, if she had spent too much, where she could retrench, or where, if the income had increased, she could best ‘launch out’ in order to insure more comforts and less forethought and worry: in consequence of her arrangements she was always beforehand with the world, and never owed a sixpence she could not pay. A young housekeeper is often bewildered between account books. She buys one, of course, and then is bothered by detail, or begins to find ‘sundries’ a most convenient entry—and so, alas! it is. But our model housekeeper shrinks from sundries, or any of these somewhat mean subterfuges, and boldly discovers how she has spent her money, although I must confess I myself am such a bad hand at this sort of thing that, could I be seen, I feel convinced I should be found to be blushing violently at giving advice which I far too often do not follow; indeed, I always feel inclined to imitate the old woman-servant whose balance sheet consisted of so many ‘foggets,’ among other items, that her master (of course he was a bachelor), confused with the idea of having so much firewood, begged her for an explanation, when she remarked, ‘ ’Taint faggots, master; ’tis forgets.’ Fortunately her honesty had been tried by many a long year’s service, or she might have got into serious trouble; and I think when we too have ‘forgets’ we are not unlikely to get into trouble when at last we have to face boldly a day of reckoning, which must come sooner or later.

But if I am not a good hand at accounts my friend is, and I here append a leaf from her account book, which, ruled and written by herself, is to me a model of what it should be. Of course the columns can be added to, to any extent, but this will show at once how to keep one’s bills before one: in such a manner, that one sees at once how and where the money has gone, and I can but hope this capital system will be adopted at once by all those who are starting in life with the best resolve of all, that nothing shall persuade them to get into debt.

And here let me say that there should always be a special column for medical attendance; and without doubting the medical profession in the least, let me impress upon all who have to call in a physician to note his visits in the column set apart for the purpose. I always note a doctor’s visits in my diary, as this often checks his accounts, for, without meaning to be dishonest, a doctor often makes the most astounding mistakes. For example, not long ago I saved myself 7l. on a doctor’s bill by sending an exorbitant account back to my then doctor, drawing his attention to the fact that by my diary only so many visits had been paid, whereas so many had evidently been charged for; when the clerk wrote back to say the error had been made in the addition, and that of course this would have been rectified next time! I can’t say if it would have been; all I know is, I was saved the money by always putting down the visits; so I most strongly advise Angelina to put the column in her account book as a reminder, even if she cannot put down in that the exact sum; and I must say I do most heartily wish it were

etiquette for doctors to send in their bills made out in items, instead of that business way of ‘To medical attendance, &c.,’ for I cannot see why they should not. Even a lawyer gives items of his detestable; and what should we say to a modiste who sent in her bill, ‘To dress and draperies to date,’ without items? I like to know what I am paying for; and why should not my case, mentioned above, be the case of many? One word before I leave the doctor—pay his bill at once; no one is kept waiting longer than a doctor; no one usually deserves his money more; it is a disagreeable bill to keep about, and should be always settled as soon as possible.

Now for one hint more, as applying both to meals and money. If you want to save begin with the butcher and the brewer—not that I for one moment want to run down beer—my husband being a brewer, I should not be likely to do so; and I mention this fact to show I cannot be a rabid teetotaler—but I do say and maintain that beer is not necessary for women and for women servants, that young people especially do not require stimulants—I, for one, never took either wine or beer until I had passed the pleasant age of thirty-one or thirty-two—and that milk is far better for both servants and children, youths and maidens, than malt liquor of any sort or description, and that therefore milk should be a somewhat large item in the housekeeping accounts. Angelina should have milk for luncheon and milk instead of that odious tea after dinner; Mary Jane should be encouraged to drink milk with her supper, and a proportionate save is at once made in the accounts, though, after all, one can only give general ideas on this subject, as, of course, individual tastes have to be studied, and no one person’s expenditure is quite a guide for another’s. Many people dislike milk, and this subject of a pleasant beverage is one that often harasses me mentally a good bit, for I don’t honestly think filtered boiled water pleasant (unfiltered unboiled water is unsafe drinking), and unless we fall back on milk and home-made lemonade, we are rather hopeless, for beer is out of the question, as far as I am concerned, in kitchen and schoolroom, and if some genius would invent something cheap, healthy, palatable, and without alcohol in it, I for one will patronise him largely, and give him honourable mention, if not a medal, all to himself.

Still, until that is done I strongly advise Angelina to pay the milkman rather than the brewer, and by drinking milk herself to set an example which will speak louder than any amount of argument. And general ideas, too, can only be given on the subject of meals. Yet general ideas are most useful as a species of foundation on which to raise the rest of the fabric, so I will shortly sketch out now a foundation scheme that should be of great assistance to those girls who are beginning housekeeping on small means, and less knowledge of the subject on which depends so much of their welfare and happiness.

It maybe of some little assistance to Angelina if I begin my short dissertation on meals by giving her one or two hints as to what to have for breakfast, before passing on to other subjects, as in some small households this always appears to me to be somewhat of a stumbling-block to a young mistress, accustomed to see a large amount of variety, prepared for a grown-up family.

What is eaten for breakfast depends, naturally, a great deal on individual tastes, and there are endless little dishes that require the attention of a first-rate cook; but Angelina and Edwin must rise superior to this, for they will not be able to afford such things even if they desire them, and I do hope they do not, for I do not know a more despicable way of spending one’s time or one’s money than in squandering it over food and expensive cooks. If things are nice and are nicely sent to table, that should suffice, and I think perhaps a few simple hints on the subject would not be out of place, for while Angelina should, of course, order carefully all that is required, I see no reason why she should rack her brain and harass her cook, particularly when that damsel will have to do a great deal besides merely cooking the breakfast.

Whatever else there is not, there should be a little fruit. Oranges, pears, apples, and grapes are cheap enough if purchased with sense, and as ‘dessert,’ as a rule, is unnecessary save for appearances—and we are too sensible to think only of these—I should advise the fruit that nobody appears to grudge the money for then; appearing at breakfast, where it makes the table look pretty, and where it is really good for both young and old folks, too. Then, if possible, have either honey or marmalade, it is much healthier and cheaper than butter, and generally try to have either a tongue (3s. 6d.) or a nice ham (8s. 6d.) in cut, it is such a useful thing to have in the house; as also are sardines (1s. a box, large size, 6½d. small), as if unexpected folk drop in to luncheon, or supper be required instead of dinner, they are there to ‘fall back upon’; and if they appear at breakfast some really fresh eggs, nicely fried bacon, curried kidneys or plain kidneys, mushrooms, a most healthy dish, and not too expensive at some times of the year; curried eggs and rice, bloaters, and bloater-toast, occasionally a fresh sole, a mackerel split open, peppered, and salted and grilled, a cutlet of cod, an occasional sausage (and ever since I can remember we always have had sausages for breakfast on Sundays), form a list from which a single dish can be chosen, and which should suffice, more especially when we consider the honey and fruit, both of which look nice on the table, are more wholesome, and save the butter and meat bill. And once the cook is trained into our ways, and she knows what to do, there is no need to order breakfast, a great comfort for those who have much domestic routine of food to think of before beginning the day. Do not have hot buttered toast or hot bread. Those two items make the butter bill into a nightmare, and are also most unhealthy, but have nice fresh brown bread, Nevill’s hot-water bread, the nicest bread made, oat-cake (2s. a large tin at any good grocer’s), and fresh, crisp, dry toast, and then I think neither Edwin nor Angelina can complain, more especially if a nice white cloth (freshly taken from the press, in which all cloths should be put folded the moment they are taken from the table), with a pretty red border, and nicely folded napkins, each in its own ring and each embroidered with initials in red, be used, and I think that I shall not be suspected of being a fussy old maid, if I suggest that the crumbs should be brushed off by the maid and the cloth folded with Angelina’s assistance, in which case it will last twice as long as it would if, as usual, it is crumpled up and shaken out at the back door in a manner much affected by careless servants. But these trifles save the washing bill, which in these days is no light consideration.

At first another meal that will trouble our bride is that most necessary of all meals—luncheon. By-and-bye, when little folks have to be thought of, this midday dinner becomes a very easy business, but I must own that luncheon and the servant’s dinner combined is a terrible trouble during the first year or two of married life.

I think it was Shirley Brooks who used to say he believed that were women left to themselves they would never have dinner at all, and that they would either keep something in a cupboard and eat from it when positively driven to do so by the pangs of hunger, or else they would have a tray brought up with tea, bread-and-butter, and an egg, and think they had done well; and I confess freely that my first idea when I hear that the lord and master of my establishment is going out to dine is, ‘Thank goodness, there will be no dinner to order;’ but this is all very well occasionally, albeit I don’t see why we women should not have the same amount of food alone as when in company, but it becomes serious if it goes on for long; therefore I once more impress upon Angelina to be sure and have her proper luncheon, just as she used to do at home with her sisters and mother before she was married. Another reason for the midday meal is that no servant will ever grumble at the food prepared for them if it has first been into the dining-room, and a good deal of trouble of this kind would be saved. It is, I own, very difficult to find food for three women that is economical as well as satisfactory, but a fair arrangement would be as follows:—Of course there will be a small piece of beef on Sunday; for a small household about 6 lbs. of the ribs of beef is best. This should be boned (the bones coming in for Monday night’s soup) and rolled, and sent to table with horse-radish, placed on the meat; Yorkshire pudding, which should be cooked under the meat, and sent in on a separate very hot dish, and appropriate vegetables according to the time of year. For a large hungry family a piece of 12 lbs. of the top side of the round should be chosen. There is only very little bone here, and not too much fat, and besides being cheaper than any other joint it is most economical, and as nice as anything else. But more of this anon.

The beef can be cold for Angelina and the maids on Monday, with, say, a lemon pudding. On Tuesday ‘dormers’ can be made, with rice and cold beef, and sent in very hot, with nice gravy, and simple pudding; a mould of cornflour and jam is delicious. Wednesday, a small amount of fish could be purchased, and cold beef used if desired. Rice pudding, made with a méringue crust, is very good indeed. Thursday, if no more beef be left, a nice boiled rabbit could be had, with some bacon round, and a custard pudding. Friday, 1½ lb. of the lean part of the neck of mutton would make a delicious stew, and pancakes could follow. Saturday, about three pounds of pork could be roasted, and sent in with a savoury pudding and apple-sauce, and a sago pudding to conclude the repast. This could be finished cold at Sunday’s supper. Here is variety and economy combined. One great thing I find in housekeeping on a larger scale is to have one or two good-sized joints, and to fill in the corners with fish, poultry, and rabbits. Fish can always be contracted for cheaply. I pay 2s. a day, and get an ample supply for dinner and breakfast, and sometimes enough for the schoolroom tea too; and poultry and rabbits can often be bought at the London markets very inexpensively, while I procure my chickens from delightful people in Liverpool, Messrs. Hasson and Co., 12 Dawson Street, who sell them to me at prices varying from 4s. 6d. to 5s. 6d. the couple, according to the time of year.

Edwin’s dinner requires, of course, more consideration, and he may have very pronounced tastes that require special studying, but in any case I say it is well and economical to have soup and fish before the meat. Soup made from bones and vegetables is as cheap and as nice as anything I know, and sixpence or a shilling a day will keep you in fish, if you set about this properly; but the great thing about all meals is to have what you may like sent to table looking nice, and to have none of the accessories forgotten, an elaborate and expensive meal ungracefully served on ugly china, or without flowers, and with half the condiments forgotten, being often enough to spoil any one’s temper, when a cheap, well-cooked dinner, prettily and tastefully put before Edwin, will satisfy him, more especially when the household books are equally satisfactory when pay-day comes.

Let me conclude this chapter by once more impressing on our young housekeepers never to allow jars and squabbles about money. At first starting know everything about your income, and settle exactly what is to suffice for dress and food, and have a settled day, once a month is best, on which to receive that allowance. Should Edwin have a fixed income this is a comparatively easy matter to settle between husband and wife; but should it fluctuate, as the income does of a man who lives by his pen, pencil, or even by stockbroking (a manner of living that would drive me mad) or by rents from land, it is safe to arrange expenditure on the basis of the least sum obtained by these means, drawing an average for the last three years, any surplus going on joyfully towards the second year, towards procuring books, taking a holiday, or bringing something home for the house; there being no pleasure like that of spending money we can feel is thoroughly our own, and that may actually be wasted if we like on something delightful, because it is not required to pay some odious bill or replace some ugly and necessary article.

CHAPTER IV.
THE HOUSEMAID’S CLOSET, AND GLASS AND CHINA.

One of the very first things to be recollected, either in the kitchen or housemaid’s pantry, is that there should be a place for everything, and yet no holes or corners where dilapidated dusters, old glass-cloths, bottles, and other débris could be stuffed away; and another axiom to remember is that every glass, tumbler, cup, saucer—in fact, every possession one has—should be neatly scheduled and kept in a book, which should be inspected and gone through twice a year, or when any change takes place in the establishment. That disagreeable remark, that so often completely floors a mistress, ‘ ’Twasn’t here when I came,’ would in this case never be heard, as the sight of the list, duly signed and dated by both mistress and maid, would of course be a complete answer to any such statement; and seeing at stated intervals what glass and china had fallen victims to the housemaid is a wonderful deterrent, and also saves any large and sudden call upon the purse, which always comes at a time when the exchequer is at its lowest, but which need never occur in an appreciable manner should each article be replaced the moment it is broken. I am no advocate for having what is called best things, holding that one’s everyday existence should be as refined and cultured as when one has ‘company,’ yet it is necessary in most of our households to have best glass and a best dinner-service, and these should be kept in a proper glass closet, under lock and key, as indeed should all spare glass and china; for, if the most trustworthy housemaid has an unlimited supply at her command, she will never tell of each separate smash, and reserves the grand total for the bi-annual day of reckoning with the book, when the mistress has often to make an outlay that is most disheartening to her, as regards not only the cost, but the blow it is to her to discover the carelessness and deception of, perhaps, a favourite maid, who would have been neither careless nor deceiving had she had to come to her mistress for every single glass over and above the few she had at her command.

Nothing has altered more in the last twenty years, both in character and price, than glass and china, and nothing shows the taste of the mistress of the house more than her plates and tumblers. No one has now any excuse for having ugly things, because good glass is as cheap as bad, and good china can be had by any one who has the taste to choose it, and the knowledge where to go and buy each separate thing. Granted that we have selected our saucepans, our basins, and other necessary things known to any one, and to be chosen from a list either sent for from Maple or Whiteley—for Maple, I have discovered, issues these lists too—and which, it seems to me, would only be waste of paper and time for me to enumerate here, we must, of course, now proceed to think about our dinner set. The best everyday one I know of is a species of plain white china supplied by Maple, and which has the owner’s monogram on the edge of the dish. These plates and dishes are so extremely cheap that when I say they are 2s. a dozen I scarcely expect to be believed, and even now I cannot help thinking there must be a mistake; but the rest of the service was equally inexpensive, and I really do not think I am making an error in giving this as the price. I invariably have my soup-tureens, sauceboats, and vegetable dishes made without handles—a pretty, rather oval shape, with the monogram on the side and on the top of the cover. There is nothing makes a table look worse than chipped or mended crockery; and how often has quite a nice service been spoiled by the fact that either the handles were knocked off and smashed, or else they were riveted on. Now if we have no handles or ornamental knobs to be knocked off, the service lasts three times as long as it otherwise would. The plain white service also insures cleanliness and absence of greasy or black finger-marks, and one never tires of this as one does of the elaborate patterns and colours some people prefer, and which are extremely difficult to match once the manufacturers have broken up the design.

I remember some friends of mine who had a service with a whole flight of red storks on, flying over each plate, and anything more ugly and incongruous it is difficult to think of. I never dined there without remembering the storks, whereas a plain service would not have been noticed in any way. For a best dinner service we should have something better, for of course the china I have been speaking of is not china really; that is to say, I would not see my fingers through it if I held it up to the strongest light that was ever made, and young people who are asked what they would like in the shape of a wedding present should remember that Mortlock, in Oxford Street, has quite charming designs, but even here I should distinctly advise, buy the plain ware, with either monogram or crest, for of this one never tires.

I once saw a charming dinner set that had been made by Mortlock; it was a beautiful pale buff ground, with a black monogram, and the china was of a delicious feel and touch, and as light as possible. Each vegetable dish was an artistic shape, and, in fact, if ever my ship comes home I shall have one like it; at present I have plain white china with a pink and gold band, and the crest and monogram in the centre of each plate, &c.; of course, this was a gift, and the nuisance it is is dreadful, for when a plate is broken I have to send the bits to Staffordshire to be copied, where they keep me waiting months for it, and charge me so highly that I am beginning to detest the whole thing.

The glass for everyday wear and tear should be as inexpensive as possible. I like quite plain glass; tumblers cost about 6s. a dozen, and the glasses for wine are equally cheap; but for best glass Salviati ware is lovely, and really, if bought judiciously, is not so very expensive after all. Besides which, it allows one to have a different set of glasses for each person. I have a dozen different sets of three each, so that if one be broken and cannot be replaced exactly like its predecessor it is not a set of thirty-six that is done for, but only a set of three, which after all need not be spoiled quite, as having odd glasses one still more odd does not make the blot on the table that it otherwise would.

The finger-glasses should also be Salviati ware. Another suggestion for Angelina, should she be asked to write down a list of things she is most anxious to receive as presents—a good plan, by the way, for birthdays and Christmas, and one we always follow, as then one is sure of receiving something one requires, and not the endless rubbish that accumulates when well-meaning friends send gifts quâ gifts to rid themselves of an obligation; and who crack their brains pondering what you would like, and at last send you something you not only don’t want but think hideous, albeit it may have cost pounds. Water bottles should invariable be coloured. The Bohemian ware—a lovely green hue—is particularly useful for this purpose, and there is a charming shop in Piccadilly where all sorts of coloured glasses and bottles are to be procured—opposite Burlington House—Douglas and Co.—and nowhere else is this charming glass as cheap and pretty as it is there. I got a sweet blue bottle and glass for a bedroom for 9d., and another, quite a beauty, for 1s. 6d. At these prices one can well remain ‘mistress of oneself though China fall.’ The teacups and saucers can also be white or pale buff, but my favourite ware is Minton’s ivy patterned china. We used to have it at home, and I have it still, as it is one of those delightful things that one can always match. It is a little expensive, but then it is so pretty! The cups are all white, but the handles represent a bit of ivy, the leaves of which are in relief round the handle, and just give a pleasant, fresh look to the breakfast table. The plates have a wreath of ivy also in relief on them, and breakfast dishes, cruets, and plates that stand heat are made to match; so that all can be en suite, except the hot-water dishes. These are plain white, with a double dish holding hot water, that keeps bacon &c. hot, not for late comers—these lazy people should never be considered—but for those who may prefer fish first, or like to have a second helping. This tea ware is good enough for best as well as everyday wear; but be sure and avoid the species that is not raised and has a gilt edge, for no one who has not seen the two sets together could understand how different they can be. I do not like gilt on anything; it is always vulgar, always suggestive of nouveaux riches, and on china has a way of washing off that is most trying, unless it happens to be burnished, when it costs a young fortune, and one’s heart is broken every time a cup or plate receives a jar. A very good way in schoolrooms or nurseries, of which more anon, to secure the smallest amount of breakages is to give each child its own cup, plate, and saucer, each set to be of a different pattern. There are some lovely specimen cups, the set of which costs about 7s. 6d.—not a bad birthday present, especially if a silver teaspoon is added, with pale yellow, marguerite, and brown foliage depicted upon them. The same style of cup has also a beautiful design of blackberries, and I have also seen a pale pink daisy that was perhaps the most charming of the lot. If a child’s own plate &c. get broken one hears of it at once, and they are at once replaced. The governess has her own set too, and it is a good plan to have two or three extra sets for schoolroom visitors, for in well-regulated houses, where the governess makes herself pleasant, schoolroom tea is a delightful meal, and, if shared by intimate friends, makes a pleasant break for the governess, and gives the children an opportunity of seeing outsiders, and learning how to behave when company is present.

The best dessert service that I know of is to be bought at Hewett’s Baker Street Bazaar. It is Oriental-looking and most uncommon. It has a green ground, and a raised pattern of flowers, butterflies, &c., and looks so good, no one has any idea of its cheapness; for example, a man who set up to be a great judge of china once was dining with us, and taking up one of my dessert plates, he began to expatiate to the lady on his left hand on the beauty and rarity thereof. I let him go on for some time, and at last I told him the price—2s. each plate; and, though he was silent and appeared to believe me, I am certain he did nothing of the kind. The dishes are dearer, but not too dear, and are all low and nice shapes, and tiny plates can be obtained to match for preserved fruits or French bonbons, all of which look nice upon a dinner-table.

Mortlock has also a plain white dessert service, of which the edges of the plate are pierced, and the dishes are like baskets, which are charming, and not too expensive; but these are rather colourless on a table unless a great deal of scarlet is used too in the flowers, and I prefer a little colour introduced myself. Still, if we avoid those terrible swans on sham ponds, with holes in their backs, like the Elle women, to hold flowers, that used to be sold with the white service, we might do worse than have this one. Of course, real china, Crown Derby, and Worcester are all nice for this purpose; but we who cannot afford this style of property can be consoled with the idea that there are other things quite as pretty within our reach, although, maybe, they are neither as costly nor as precious, nor as liable to be broken.

While we are on the subject of glass and china I should like to say a few words more about the arrangement of the glass and china, and especially about the everyday dinner and breakfast table management, as in a small establishment it entirely rests upon the shoulders of the mistress whether the table presents a charming appearance or whether it does not. I will not suppose that Angelina burdens herself with experienced maidens, but I will think she has taken my advice and secured a couple of bright pleasant girls, of whom she can make friends, and who are not already spoiled for her use in some large establishment, and this being so, she will no doubt at first have to lay her table herself. This may be considered a hardship by our bride, but I am quite sure she will soon cease to regard it as one. Anyhow, I beg she will try my nice girls, and if they fail, why, she can but fall back on her ‘experienced’ ones after all, but she must not take them haphazard, but must select them as she does her personal friends, because then she will, knowing something about their family, their inherited tendencies and their dispositions, be able to know how to manage them. We do not ‘make friends’ with strangers unless we know something of their forbears, and this rule should apply to strange servants quite as much as it does to acquaintances who do not live with us, and only come in now and then, and are easily dropped should they prove uncongenial and disagreeable.

It is so easy to get your maiden into nice ways if she have no bad ones of her own, out of which you have to take her first, and, beginning at once to show her how you like things, you will soon be able to rely on her, and she will take a pride in copying you, and you will soon have your reward in service that is real, because it comes from the heart and not from the eye.

I am a great advocate for white china, because the washing of this cannot be scamped, and as far as possible all breakfast china should be white, with just a pattern of ivy or daisies, as described above; and the breakfast-table could be laid something as follows, putting the mistress at the head of the table if she wishes, and the master at the side, not at the foot—a most dreary arrangement, unless the breakfast table is filled by others besides the host and hostess, which in Angelina’s case is most unlikely. In front of Angelina is arranged the breakfast equipage, and I strongly advise her to have either cocoa or nicely made coffee, and to taboo that wretched tea that destroys so many digestions and unstrings so many nerves. Coffee is not more expensive, and a charming drink is made from equal parts of Mocha, East Indian, and Plantation coffee at 1s. 5½d. a pound and 1s. 4½d. It should be bought in the berry, and ground each morning; but as this is too much labour in our small household, I should suggest buying half a dozen pounds, two of each kind at a time, mixing them carefully and keeping them in a tin biscuit-box, filling up a smaller canister that holds a pound as required. I always do this, and the coffee is as fragrant and good the last day I use from it as on the first. This should be made for two people in one of Ash’s kaffee kanns, purchasable in Oxford Street, the best coffee machine I know of anywhere, and, being furnished with a spirit-lamp, it has always means of keeping the coffee hot, and the cheerful song of the little lamp is very pleasant when we come down on a cold wet morning. Of course the milk must be boiled, and sent in very hot in a china jug to match the china, and Barbadoes raw sugar is better with it than the ordinary lump. Very pretty basins, both for moist and lump sugar, can be bought at the Baker Street Bazaar, in Oriental china, for 1s. or 2s.; butter-dishes at 6d., in blue and white china, also marmalade and honey pots, for about 2s.; and as the blue harmonises with green, these pots can be used quite well with my favourite ivy service, of which I spoke before.

In the centre of the table there should always be an art pot with a plant in. Of course I know people will consider that expensive, and will sometimes even put another enemy of mine (a worse enemy even than that terrible hat-stand!) in this place of honour—I mean a cruet-stand. But let me tell you what this expensive item has cost me since this time last year—just five shillings. I had my pot for years, naturally, and this is not included in the outlay, but this some years ago cost 3s., so no one can object on the score of expense. In this pot I had planted a cocos palm, 3s. 6d., a most graceful plant, and the other 1s. 6d. went for three tiny ferns, all of which are flourishing mightily, and will soon have to be transplanted and make room for smaller ones again. Any lady fond of gardening could have planted these herself, and, naturally, cheaper plants are to be had; but the fine, graceful foliage of the cocos is so pretty, and the plant lasts so long, that I can heartily recommend it from long experience.

Of course, round the centre plant can be arranged three or four specimen glasses of flowers; but this I have never time to do except on special occasions, yet it adds much to the effect of a breakfast-table, and no young housekeeper who has not a settled occupation, such as keeps me employed from nine until one, should ever allow her table to be flowerless or ugly. In front of Edwin should be placed any hot food provided for breakfast, on nice china hot-water dishes; the bread should be placed on a wooden bread platter, that has neither a text nor a moral reflection carved on it—two things that always seem to me singularly out of place on a bread-stand; and the knife should be one of those very nice ivory-handled ones, made on purpose by Mappin and Webb, I believe, that cost 7s. 6d., but that last years.

At the corner of the table, between Edwin and Angelina, should be neatly arranged salt, pepper, and mustard. A tiny set of cruets for breakfast can be bought to match the ivy festooned ware, and is as pretty as can be. Very pretty white china salt-cellars &c. can be also purchased, with white china spoons to serve with; and Doulton makes charming sets also, which go with any service, and are very strong, but these have plated mounts; and I am not nearly as fond of them as I am of plain china, as these always look and are clean; and either plated ware or silver tarnish very soon, and make a great deal of work for our one pair of hands; which is one very strong reason why Angelina should put away all the pretty silver salt-cellars she is sure to receive when she is married; reserving these and other handsome possessions until she can afford a butler, or until she has trained her maidens well, and is justified in taking extra help, under the housemaid, when, if she likes, she can bring it out and use it daily.

As in every other department, in the housemaid’s department should rules and regulations be found. She should clean certain rooms on certain days; she should never leave her silver in greasy, or her knives in hot water; she should keep soda in her sink just as the cook does; and she should be instructed how to keep her glass clean and bright, a smeared glass or plate being at once returned to her for alteration should she bring it up to table.

Let the housemaid, moreover, have two or three coarse dust-sheets for covering the furniture when she is sweeping and dusting (and see she uses them), a large piece of ‘crash’ to place in front of the fireplace, when she is cleaning the grate, and a housemaid’s box and gloves. She must, furthermore, have three dusters, three glass-cloths, a good chamois leather, a set of brushes and plate-brushes, a decanter-drainer, a wooden bowl for washing up in, which must be kept free from grease of any kind, and she must wash out her dusters for herself. This makes them last much longer than they otherwise would, and if she has only a certain number she cannot waste and spoil them. Little things like these are what almost ruin a young housekeeper, because she does not know how to manage, and because she is too proud, as a rule, to ask any one why dusters vanish into thin air, and why the washing bill adds up so mysteriously.

Silver can be kept beautifully clean if washed in clean soda water daily, and then cleaned with a little whitening; which glass should be always rubbed bright with a leather.

These items appear insignificant, but I am sure they will be useful hints to many of my less experienced readers.

CHAPTER V.
FIRST SHOPPING.

In life, as in everything else, it is extremely difficult to draw the line anywhere. I want both my young people to care about their house, and know every detail of its management, but they must not become domestic dummies, and think of nothing save how to make a shilling do the work of two, and how to circumvent that terrible butcher, or that still more awful laundry-woman. Once started, the details that seem so ugly and wearisome on paper need never be gone into again, but it is necessary to have some plan and stick to it, else the jarring of the wheels of the domestic car will always be heard, and life will indeed be stale, dull, and unprofitable. People provide their own poetry, my young friends, and life is a very good thing if you do not expect too much from it, or if you will not refuse to accept other folks’ experience, for she has nothing new to give you, nothing to show you she has not shown us all before you. You are not the only young people who have started on a diet of roses and cream, and not the only ones either who have found this disagree with them. So buckle too manfully, and work your way onwards, being quite sure that every fresh home started and kept going on excellent sound principles of health and beauty does a work little known of, less understood about, perhaps, by those who inhabit it, but none the less beneficial to all those who come within its influence.

But I do not mean to preach a sermon, much as I should like to do so, but only to preface my remarks on the subject of our first shopping and how we should begin our scheme of decoration.

It is usual for the landlord to allow a certain sum for the decoration of a house; but rarely, if ever, does that sum allow of anything like really artistic papering and painting. Yet, I maintain, artistic surroundings are far more important than handsome furniture or even an elaborate wedding dress; and I think if we have common sense, and find a good journeyman carpenter and painter, who will work himself with his men under our directions, we shall manage very well indeed.

Could we afford it, of course, I would employ Morris, or Smee’s people, or Collinson and Lock, with their delicious arrangement of ‘fittings’; but we cannot, and our first business is to find some inexpensive man who will do as he is told. Then we can buy our papers and set to work. There is no saving like that we can make in this first work, if we can only put our hand on our man. And when this is done our next step is to describe the work we shall require to be done and to ask him to send in a contract, which is to be for everything, and is not to be departed from on any account whatever.

The great advantage to me in employing our own man is that we buy our own wall-papers &c. just wherever we like, and can, moreover, obtain a large discount on them if we pay cash, and insinuate that we expect the aforesaid discount as a matter of course. Then we can start on our shopping and to enjoy ourselves, though I question much if shopping be quite as charming an occupation as one expects it to be. Certainly, unless one starts with a clear conception of one’s needs, a long day’s shopping can result in nothing save great confusion of ideas, and a fearful consciousness that one has bought the very things one ought not to have purchased, and entirely forgotten the very articles of which we were most in want.

To avoid this disagreeable termination to our day, we must never start in a hurry, never be obliged to hasten over our purchases; and once our minds are made up on the subject of colours, we must not allow a ‘sweetly pretty’ pattern or beautiful hue to tempt us. Having made up our minds what we want, let us buy that, and nothing else.

Therefore, before going out really to purchase, we must settle definitely what are our requirements; and after really making the acquaintance of our house, the next thing to do is to find out what pretty things can be bought, at which shops, and at the most reasonable rate; and this is only to be done by a painstaking inspection of what the different establishments have to offer us, and by not disdaining to look in at shop windows, keeping both ears and eyes open, and using our senses and, if possible, other people’s experiences, as much as we can. This is a long and tedious process, but one worth going through, if we really want our house to be a home, and the experience we purchase with our furniture will go a long way towards helping us to solve the problem set before so many of us: how to live pleasantly on small means. One axiom we can undoubtedly lay to heart and remember, and that is that no one establishment should be resorted to for everything. Long experience teaches me that each shop has its specialties; it may supply everything from beds to food, from saucepans to grand pianos, still there is always some one thing that another shop has better and cheaper, and it is as well to find this out before we start away to buy our furniture, for I have often been made very angry by seeing exactly the same thing I gave 5s. for in one shop sold at 2s. 6d. in a less fashionable but equally accessible neighbourhood, while nothing varies as much as the price of wall-papers. I have known the self-same paper sold at 2s. 6d., 3s. 6d., and 4s. a piece by three different firms, all within a stone’s throw of each other; and, naturally, patterns alter from year to year, and we can scarcely ever match a paper unless we purchase one designed by some well-known designer, such as Morris, Jeffreys, Shufferey, Collinson and Lock, and Mr. E. Pither, of Mortimer Street, W., for whose cheap artistic papers I for one can never be too profoundly grateful.

But even more important than to find where to get the cheapest things is it to consult the house itself on what will suit it best in the way of furniture, and we should never allow ourselves to buy a single thing until we have taken our house into our confidence, and discovered all about its likes and dislikes. This sounds ridiculous, I know; but I am convinced a house is a sentient thing, and becomes part and parcel of those who live in it in a most mysterious way. Anyhow, to put it on the most prosaic grounds, what would be the use of buying a corner cupboard that would not fit into any corner, or in purchasing a sofa for which there was no place to be found once it was bought?

It is, therefore, far better to know our house thoroughly before we really begin to furnish; and I cannot too strongly advise all ladies to buy merely the bare necessaries of life before they go into their houses to live, reserving the rest of their money until they are quite sure what the house really wants most. But here let me whisper a little hint to our bride: a man before he is married is apt to be far more generously minded than he is once he has his prize safe; therefore, there should be a clear understanding that so much is to be spent really and positively; otherwise the bridegroom may think, as many men do, that, as things have ‘done’ for a while, they can ‘do’ for ever, and he may button up his pockets and refuse to buy anything more than he has already done. I have known more than one man do this; and even the best man that ever lived—by which every woman means her own husband, of course—never can understand either that things wear out or women require any money to spend.

When starting out on our shopping, we should put down first of all what we wish to buy, and then what we wish to spend, and we should never be persuaded to spend more on one thing than the outside price we have put down for it in our own schedule. If we do, something will have to go short, and that may be something very important both for health and comfort.

You know individually what you can afford, so make a note of that, and keep to it firmly, never allowing yourself to spend any more on that particular thing, thinking you can save elsewhere, for your list should be so exact that you cannot possibly spare anything you have set down in it.

And now another axiom to be remembered when shopping: never allow an upholsterer to direct your taste or to tell you what to buy, neither allow him to talk you out of anything on which you have settled after mature consideration.

The best of upholsterers has only an upholsterer’s notions, and naturally rather wishes to sell what he has, rather more than he desires to procure you what you want. He spots an ingénue the moment she enters his shop, and he cannot help remembering that here is the person likely to buy his venerable ‘shop-keepers,’ and he brings them forward until, bewildered by the quantity and ashamed not to buy after all the trouble she thinks she has given, Miss Innocence spends her money, and regrets her stupidity for the rest of her life.

All young people starting in life are so very certain that they are going to do better than any one else, that they invariably scoff at the idea of an upholsterer being able to direct them, but let them start prepared for this by my hint, and let them keep their eyes open; and if they do not see things that have not been brought to the light of day for ages at first, and before the man has realised he has a forewarned damsel and no ingénue to deal with, they need never believe a word I say for the future. But I have seen and watched this little comedy too often not to know I am really stating a fact.

Start on your shopping armed with this caution, your list, and a determination to be content with what you can afford, and a determination to get the prettiest things you can for your money, and you will do well; and above all remember that your lines have fallen on days when beauty and cheapness go hand in hand, and don’t hanker after Turkey carpets, when the price of one would go far indeed to furnish the whole of the room for which you would so like it, regardless of the fact that if you purchase such an expensive luxury you will have nothing whatever left with which to buy suitable chairs, tables, and plenishing to match a carpet which is only fit to go where expense is no object.

And please mark carefully the word ‘suitable,’ for there is no word so absolutely set on one side in our English language. Do not be guided by fashion, or by what some one else has done or means to do, or by anything at all, save the length of your purse and the house where you are to live; and recollect cheap things are easily replaced, while expensive ones wear one to death in taking care of them, and in marking sorrowfully how much sooner they fade or go into holes than we can afford to replace them.

If all this is remembered, laid to heart, and well thought over, the first shopping can be commenced at any time, and should consist of a careful selection of wall-papers and paints for at least the hall, dining-room, and staircase.

CHAPTER VI.
THE HALL.

Perhaps the most difficult part of a house to really make look nice is the hall, especially in one of the small houses of the period, where that tiresome man, the builder, appears to consider either that an entrance to the house is not necessary at all, or that the smaller it is, and the more the stairs are in evidence, the better and more appropriate it is to Angelina’s lowly station in life; indeed, this idiosyncrasy is not confined to small houses, for I know of more than one good-sized domicile that is entirely spoiled by the manner in which the staircase rises from the front door, scarcely allowing that room enough to open, or which has not space even for the hat-stand and hall-table to which the British matron is as a rule so very fondly attached. However, there is now a distinct advance in the matter of the hall in many of the new houses; and we will take it for granted that we have a small space at all events that we can make the very best of, for nothing adds so much to the appearance of a house as a nicely arranged hall. Indeed, were I now beginning housekeeping, nothing should induce me to take a house where there was not an appreciable distance between the sitting-rooms and the front door, for if this latter opens direct on them it is impossible to avoid draughts and constant catching of cold; a nicely warmed sitting-room becoming well-nigh uninhabitable when the front door is opened on a cold or windy night: a chill and cutting draught enters, and in a moment a bad cold is caught. I know nothing more important, therefore, than to consider the position of a front door in choosing a house, as not only one’s comfort but much of one’s health depends upon this. I have had this ‘borne in upon me,’ as the Shakers would say, often and often, when I have been staying in a house where there is literally not a square yard of hall, where the stairs and the front door seem all one, and where the drawing-room literally opens out into the place where the front door is. Even in not particularly cold weather, nothing keeps such a house even warm, and the sudden changes of temperature caused by this arrangement are so great that I have had to live in a shawl and yet could not rise above freezing point; and, of course, what it must be in the depth of winter I must leave my readers to imagine.

The first thing to look at, then, is what we can do with our hall, when we have it. If the front door is very near us, we must hang over it a good thick curtain. I should advise a double curtain of serge or felt. This could be arranged on one of those delightful rods that are, I believe, only to be purchased of Maple, and that move with the door itself in some mysterious way, with a bracket arrangement, and that prevents the necessity of drawing the curtain itself when the door is opened. Of course this would only be for winter use and for when the delightful east wind was blowing; but over all the doors in my hall I have curtains which remain up all the year round, because they look so nice, and are really of a great deal of use in more ways than one. As the doors open inwards, these are only put up on the ordinary narrow brass poles with rings, and are tied back with Liberty silk handkerchiefs, or in several instances looped high with cords, as in Illustration No. 1. This allows of the curtain being dropped in one moment should more warmth be desired. These cords and tassels are procurable at Smee’s, while the handkerchiefs are Liberty’s. A 3s. 6d. handkerchief, cut in half and hemmed, is the proper size to use for this purpose, should they be preferred to the cords. Some of the curtains are made of stamped velveteen at 2s. 3d. and 2s. 6d. the yard, edged round the bottom and one side with a ball fringe to match, and others are made of serge; but I prefer the velveteen—it wears beautifully, and can be made to look as good as new by being re-dipped by Pullar the dyer, who lives at Perth, who is very well known, and has agents all over the kingdom, so there is no expense, incurred in sending the things to him. The curtains over the doorways of the sitting-rooms are always kept tied back, and I furthermore put in tintacks down the sides nearest the wall to keep them in place, and to keep out the draught. This does not harm the curtains in the least if very small bits of tape are sewn on the material, and the nail inserted in these, not in the curtains themselves. Over the door that leads into the kitchen departments the curtains should be in one piece, capable of being drawn; to keep this in place it is well to put the last ring over the end of the pole, so that it cannot be drawn on more than one side. This saves it from looking like a rag, which it would do could it be drawn with equal ease both sides, and also secures that it shall remain drawn over a door that would be always revealing all sorts of domestic secrets were it not for the friendly shield of the concealing curtain, in the praise of which I feel I cannot really say too much.

The flooring of the hall is our next consideration. If we have tiles, and very many houses have tiles nowadays, I think I should be inclined to say, leave the floor just as it is. If you put down a nice rug, dirty boots soon reduce it to a state of dirt and squalor; and nicely washed tiles really look as well as anything. Of course a good thick mat must be placed at the front door. This is best purchased at Treloar’s, in Ludgate Hill, for I really do believe his mats never wear out. I have had one for years with ‘Salve’ on in red letters, and that mat is as good now as the day on which I purchased it, and it has had the wear of boys to contend with, to say nothing of, first, an extremely chalky soil, and then a clay one. Behind the door I should put a brass stand, just to hold the wet umbrellas. Maple has very pretty brass stands indeed for about 25s. 6d.; but when dry each member of the family should be made to take his or her umbrella into their own room, and put them in a corner there not rolled up. The life of an umbrella is quite doubled in length if this simple rule is remembered, and, indeed, if there be a room where the umbrella can be allowed to dry, I should advise its being put there at once open, for umbrella stands wear out one’s umbrella quicker than any amount of wear. Very pretty stands are now made from drain-pipes, which are painted, and in some cases embellished with flowers made from clay in imitation of Barbotine ware; but these are easily broken, and I think a brass one much the best for all purposes.

Now, on no account allow any one to hang up a coat or wrap in the hall. First of all, a collection of coats and hats tempts a thief; and, secondly, I cannot imagine anything more untidy-looking. The men of the household can be easily trained to take their own especial property at once into their own rooms, where there should be accommodation for them; and visitors’ hats and coats can be taken possession of by the maid, and hung up in the passage behind the curtained door that leads to the kitchen, where they are out of sight at all events, and can be given back to their owners quite as easily as if they were making our hall like an old clothes shop, or filling it with water from outside. On no account, therefore, buy a hall stand, brass hooks or a row of pegs in some unobtrusive corner answering every purpose, as far as I can see. Of course if the master comes in wet his garments must go straight to the kitchen fire, anyhow; if he be dry, why should he not take his hat and coat into his own dressing-room? We do not put on our bonnets and jackets in the hall, or keep them there either, and I cannot myself see why he should. But it is all a matter of management and use, and if he be asked to begin properly by taking his property upstairs, I am quite sure there will be no trouble about that detestable piece of furniture, a hat-stand.

Of course, nowadays no one thinks of having imitation marble-paper in the hall—that monstrosity is at last never now to be met with; but the hall paper is rather a difficult business, and must be chosen especially to suit the hall for which it is intended. A soft green paper makes almost any hall and staircase look cheerful, but my pet paper is undoubtedly Pither’s ‘blue blossom,’ at 1s. 6d. a piece, and I especially recommend a dado here, but not a paper one—this soon gets shabby. Children’s little paws, boxes going up and down, a thousand things inseparable from a staircase, in the shape of wear and tear, all have to be considered. Therefore, either a dado of matting, with a real wooden rail, painted the colour of the paper or else a wooden dado, or one of really pretty cretonne, are all to be preferred, because they stand a good many hard knocks, and remain unspoiled to the last. A matting dado, I think myself, is the very best, and, if desired, the stair-carpets can be saved much wear by covering them in their turn with narrow matting too. I really think a blue hall is as pretty as any, and then old-gold curtains over the doors look charming; but a sage-green hall looks extremely well, and I have seen a terra-cotta paper, with a chintz dado, using Liberty’s Mysore chintz, that had a very pretty effect indeed. If the banisters end in a round, a good effect is procured by placing a plant in a pot there. I had one that never got knocked over; but, for fear of a catastrophe, a brass pot with an aspidistra should be selected, as, if this falls, it cannot be utterly and entirely done for, as a china one would be containing a fragile fern or a delicate palm, neither of which, by the way, would stand the draught as the long-suffering aspidistra invariably does. I like pictures up the staircase, and, should there be a staircase window, artistic jugs and pots, more especially the Bournemouth and Rebecca ware, sold by Mr. Elliot (who lives at the top of the Queen’s Road, Bayswater, No. 18), should stand all along the window-ledge; and if the outlook be ugly, the entire window should be covered by a fluted muslin curtain in art colours, using either Madras, which does not wash well, and must always be new here, or Liberty’s artistic muslins at 1s. a yard, with the appearance of which I am delighted, either for window blinds or summer quilts, or material for throwing over sofas, instead of guipure and muslin. It is sold in all colours, and is one of the best things I have seen for some time.

How we furnish our hall must of course entirely depend on the room we have. Liberty has some charming bamboo settees in black, and arm-chairs to match. These are especially suitable for a hall, while an oak chest with an oaken back is a most valuable possession; the chest holds comfortably the year’s accumulation of papers and magazines until it is time for them to go to the binder, and the top and back are charming with heavy jugs on, made too heavy to be blown over by filling them with sand, in which, when flowers are plentiful, blossoms can be put, and when they are scarce, leaves and berries and pampas grasses show to great advantage. If any small tables are about, have plants and books on them, and above all avoid any appearance of a passage or hall—nothing makes a house look so miserable. A good thing to bang in the hall is a nicely illuminated card saying when the post goes out, with a box underneath for the letters, and the time-table and a hat-brush should be in some unobtrusive corner, whence they should never be moved on any pretext whatever; a fixed matchbox, that should always be full, is another institution, and a candlestick in good order should be put on one of the tables when the hall gas is lighted. The painted artistic-looking candlesticks sold by Liberty at 2s. 9d. are very pretty, but a brass candlestick does not get shabby quite so soon, and is not much if any dearer. One more axiom: never have loose mats at the room doors outside; they only turn over with the ladies’ dresses, and get untidy, while a piece of indiarubber tubing at the bottom of the door keeps out far more draught than any mat possibly can. If the hall be not tiled, I recommend it to be covered with Pither’s capital hard-wearing drugget over felt, with one or two dhurries about, put down carelessly, for sake of the colour; these wash beautifully and wear excellently, and begin at 1s. 6d. each, rising in price according to size, while one or two of the Kurd or Scinde rugs would be even better than these, as they stand a very great deal of wear and tear.

Before passing away from the hall, I will just mention two or three schemes of decoration that are absolutely certain to be a success, and therefore can be adopted without any chance of a failure: No. 1 is Pither’s invaluable red and white ‘berry’ paper at 1s. 6d. a piece; a dado of red and white matting—Treloar, Ludgate Hill, has a capital one at about 1s. a yard, and varnished paint the exact colour of the red on the flower; blue hard wearing drugget on the floor, and red, white, and blue striped dhurries for portières. No. 2.—Paper of a good sage-green, with dado of Japanese leather paper in sage-green, and gold all the paint varnished sage-green and Pither’s terra-cotta hard-wearing drugget on the floor and stairs; terra-cotta and grey-blue serge curtains would be safe here, and if there be a back staircase and no boys in the house, the dado may be replaced by a frieze of Maple’s grey-gold Japanese leather paper; this resembles a flight of birds among palm branches, and this arrangement is simply a perfect hall, but not suitable for one where there is much traffic. All the paint, on doors, wainscot, and frieze or picture-rail alike, must be one shade of green only, and I most strongly deprecate for any place the odious habit of picking out styles and wainscoting with another shade of paint; this is never needed, only adds to the work, and draws attention to the paint, at which we do not want to look, and which would only serve as a pleasant background to oneself and one’s belongings. The sides of the stairs and the balustrading should all be painted to match, though the mahogany handrail should be left alone.

Scheme No. 3 would only do where expense was no object, but would undoubtedly make a most lovely hall. This would be in cream-coloured varnished paint, with a high wooden dado painted cream colour, and then embellished with sketches of birds and flowers by Mrs. McClelland’s clever fingers; the paper could be a good gold-coloured Japanese leather paper, and the carpets could be Oriental rugs sewn together, while the hall should have a handsome Oriental square of carpet, and one or two divans placed about it; the draperies could be Liberty’s beautiful chenille material in Oriental colours too, and great care should be taken with their arrangement. In all cases I strongly advise the ceilings to be papered, no one who has once indulged in a coloured or decorated ceiling ever going back to the cold, ugly whitewash, with which we have all been so contented so long. It is generally safe to put a blue and white ceiling paper with a yellow or red wall paper, a terra-cotta and white with green walls, and a yellow and white with blue walls, taking care to carry out this combination of colouring in the carpets, draperies, &c.

Much as I dislike gas, it is a necessity in any hall, and I here produce two sketches of beaten iron gas-lamps that would be suitable for almost any style of decoration; these are from the designs of Messrs. Strode, 48 Osnaburgh Street, Regent’s Park, and cost respectively 5l. 15s. and 1l. 4s. each; quite simple hanging lamps are to be had from Mr. Smee at 35s., in beaten iron, but these are not quite large enough by themselves to light a hall, and two at least would be required.

On no account, by the way, allow your front door to be disfigured with the terrible ‘graining,’ against which I am always waging war. Painters always beg to be allowed to ‘embellish’ at least the front door with the hideous but orthodox arrangement of yellows and browns, scraped mysteriously and agonisedly with a comb, or some such instrument, in a faint and feeble attempt to deceive callers into believing that the door is made of some highly polished wood, veined by nature, in a way that could not deceive the veriest ignoramus; but I stoutly set my face against such an idea, and denounce graining as the hideous and palpable sham it undoubtedly is, advising all who come to me to have some good deep self-colour for their front door, and generally suggesting a very dark peacock-blue door for a ‘blue blossom’ hall, a very dark Indian red for the red berry, and a dark sage-green for the sage-green hall, adding brass handles and furniture; this stamps the house at once as an artistic one, and one in which ‘graining’ will not be allowed at any price.

And here I will pause for a moment to beg any one who may need these words of mine to refuse to allow any graining whatever in their houses; it is a barbarism that should be allowed to die out as quickly as may be; it is always ugly, always inartistic, and, being an undoubted attempt to seem what it is not, I set my face against it always. I would rather have deal, rubbed over with boiled oil, than the most ‘artistically’ imitated piece of walnut or mahogany ever produced by the grainer’s tools; the one is neat, the other a vulgar sham—vulgar because it is always vulgar to seem to be what one is not, and to pretend to be what can be contradicted by the tiniest scratch, rather than to be confessedly of a cheap material, and therefore graining cannot be too strongly condemned.

Many people cling to it who dislike it as much as I do, because they are told nothing can be done to it, unless all the paint is burned off; there never was a greater fallacy! To paint over graining all one has to do is to have the paint washed thoroughly with strong soda and water, and then rubbed down with glass-paper, then apply one coat of Aspinall’s water-paint and one coat of his enamel, and you can possess at once all the colour you require, without any trouble at all. Of course a perfect ‘job’ is only made by burning off the paint, but no one could ever tell this had not been done, and very particular people can themselves apply first of all Carson’s ‘detergent,’ sold at Carson’s paint works, La Belle Sauvage Yard, for 5s. a tin; this brings off the old paint in flakes, and leaves the bare wood ready for the painter’s brush. Still this is not necessary, and people who have kept to graining because they dread the burning-off process need do so no longer, unless they positively cannot afford the new paint required to cover it over.

A stone hall in the country looks much better if the stones are painted a good red or blue, instead of being whitened daily, and Treloar’s scarlet cocoanut matting is invaluable in back passages and on kitchen stairs; and above all we must recollect that the hall gives the first welcome to our guests, and that therefore the more it resembles a cosy, comfortable, artistic room, the more likely is the rest of the house to be a charming and successfully designed and furnished home.

CHAPTER VII.
THE DINING-ROOM.

In my first chapter I laid just a little stress on the word ‘suitable’; but in looking back at it, I find I did not say half what I intended to on the subject of making that most suggestive tri-syllable our guiding star, as it were, in our whole scheme of life, and it may not be out of place just to dwell upon it a little, before proceeding to lay out any money, because if we calmly and dispassionately regulate our desires by their appropriateness to our purse, and our standing in the social scale, we shall find our requirements diminish sensibly, and our purchasing powers increased in the most pleasing and comfortable way.

Therefore, in starting to buy the furniture for our modest dining-room, let us consider not what is handsome or effective or taking to the eye, but what is suitable to Edwin’s position, and what will be pleasant for Angelina to possess, without having unduly to agitate herself and worry herself to death in nervously protecting her goods and chattels from wear and tear, which often enough is reflected on her, and wears and tears her nerves, and takes up her time in a manner that would be pathetic, if it were not so ridiculous and so extremely unsuitable to her position as a British matron. Therefore, with a small income it is the reverse of suitable to make purchases that can never be replaced without months of anxious striving and saving; for though, of course, incomes may increase, they seldom increase in proportion to the wants of the household; and it is better to buy strong plain furniture, to purchase cheap and pretty carpets and draperies that can be replaced without a serious drain on our income, than to revel in expensive chairs and tables which, should they be scratched and broken, can never be matched without much more sacrifice than they are worth; and if we march along manfully, determined to act suitably, not fashionably, we shall enjoy life a thousand times better, and have at the same time the pleasing consciousness that we are doing good to our fellow-creatures, without knowing it perhaps, but most satisfactorily; for example is worth a thousand precepts, and practising is more than a million sermons, all the world over.

How often a well-managed house, an income carefully (not meanly, not lavishly, but carefully) administered, or a pretty idea pleasantly carried out, has shone like a bright light in this naughty world—other people have seen our strivings, may be have noted our cheerful bright house, and seen our small but comfortable ménage, and have gone on their way cheered and refreshed by our example, and in copying it have influenced some one else in quite another part of London or the suburbs; and, alas! how many may we not have helped on the downward path of extravagance and foolish lavishness by our foolishness or our needless display, which we have repented of, most likely, long before all the bills were paid.

Taking into consideration the fact that no one can live to themselves, even in the purchase of chairs and tables, we may, perhaps, be forgiven our sermon; but lest Angelina tires of our prating, and shrinks appalled from the serious manner in which we cannot help regarding the starting of any new home, we will leave off preaching on unsuitability, and proceed on our journey in search of nice and suitable furniture for our small dining-room.

Great care must be taken in selecting our dining-room chairs, and we earnestly advise all intending purchasers of these necessary articles of furniture to look not so much at the appearance as to their capabilities for affording a resting-place to a weary back; for I have often endured a silent martyrdom at many a dinner-party, in the houses of those amiable but mistaken people who go in for Chippendale chairs, embellished by carvings just where one leans back, or for those other still more agonising seats which have a round gap or space, and through which one almost falls should one try to lean against them and so obtain rest; and I am naturally anxious to save others from the sufferings I have endured, either on the chairs just spoken of, or seated on one the seat of which was so high from the ground that my legs have refused to reach it, and I have hung suspended in mid-air, until I have hardly known how to sit out the long and elaborate meal I was enduring, certainly not enjoying.

Now here are five chairs illustrated, any one of which would be quite safe to have. No. 5 is the most expensive of all, and would cost about 3l. 10s. each. These are ebonised New Zealand pine, and are upholstered in a dull brown morocco, which has worn splendidly. Nos. 6, 7, and 8 are Mr. Smee’s designs, and are made with a peculiar curve in the backs, which just takes one’s shoulders, and gives one a comfortable resting-place without appearing to be in the least a lounge. These chairs can be had for about 32s. and 42s. respectively, No. 6 being upholstered in a species of woollen tapestry, which wears well, and would be singularly suitable for a small ménage, and is, therefore, not out of the reach of most of us; while for folks who require something much less expensive than even the cheapest chairs just spoken of, there are the 3s. 6d. rush-seated black-framed chairs, sold by Messrs. Harding Bros., Beaconsfield, Bucks, which are strong, artistic in appearance, and infinitely to be preferred to the chairs in the terrible ‘suites,’ that are such a temptation to the unwary, and to those who make that most fatal of all mistakes, and do their shopping in a hurry—than which there cannot be a greater error.

In a small room I am much inclined to a round table; these are much more cosy, and much more easily arranged to look nice; but, in any case, the table need only be stained deal, with fairly good legs, for in these days the table is always kept covered by a tablecloth, and is never shown as it used to be in the old times, when half the occupation of the servants, and often enough of the unfortunate mistress too, was to polish the mahogany incubus, and bring it up to a state of perfection. We have other and better occupations now than this constant ‘furniture tending,’ I am glad to say; and, oh! how much prettier our houses are, to be sure, than they used to be.

There are two of these species of tablecloths especially to be recommended, both for their artistic and their inexpensive merits, and are far to be preferred to the tapestry cloths kept ready made in most shops. Self-coloured felt or serge makes an admirable cover, especially if a border is added of some contrasting colour. Peacock-blue serge looks well with an old-gold border, about six inches wide; each side of the border has a gimp combining the two colours, and the cloth itself is edged with a tufted fringe. Two shades of red look well too; but, of course, the cloth must be chosen to harmonise with the room in which it is to be used, and not bought, as Englishmen all too often make their purchases, because the thing is pretty in itself, forgetting that it ceases to have even a claim on the score of beauty when placed among incongruous surroundings. I may mention, now I am on the subject of tablecloths, that I much dislike the custom of leaving the white tablecloth on all day long; this invariably makes the room look like an eating-house, and causes the cloth to appear messed, for dust from the fire settles upon it; and I always insist on the white cloth being brushed, folded in its folds on the table by the two maids, and then placed at once in the press, a cloth managed like that lasting twice as long and looking much better than the one that is left on for two or three days at a time; for few if any of us can now afford a clean tablecloth every day, not only on the score of the washing, but because the washing process too often applied ruins our cloths, and results in nothing save a series of holes, worn by chemicals and careless mangling; therefore the white cloth must be removed, and replaced by a good art serge or felt, made up, as suggested above, with a band of some contrasting hue. This cloth careful people remove during meals, for no one can be sure whether gravy or wine will not be upset; and teacups and saucers have been known to be turned over bodily even in the best-regulated families. These accidents do no positive damage if the good cloth is removed; and, after all, this is a small thing to recollect, and may save expenditure both of money and temper too.

These tiny hints are of course meant for people who are not well off, but may not be out of place even to those richer people who are lucky enough not to be obliged to worry after every trifle. A penny saved is a penny gained; and even the richest among us has need to be careful. What he saves can after all be given to some poor brother.

But however rich you are do not be persuaded to buy that ugly, expensive, and tremendous thing a sideboard; neither waste your substance on dinner-wagons, they spoil the appearance of everything; but get some obliging and clever upholsterer to make you a cabinet or two, one for each side of the fireplace, if you have recesses there, and take care they are pretty, for much of the look of your home depends upon what you have in the shape of armoires. I have two made in ebonised wood from a design given me by a Royal Academician, which are illustrated here. They have three shelves, then a broad space where are deep cupboards, and then again an empty space, where books can be kept, or great jars put to decorate it. On the three shelves I arrange china, which is also arranged on the top of the part that has three cupboards. These have brass hinges and good locks, and hold wine, dessert, dinner napkins, and trifles, such as string, nails, and other necessary articles, and answer every purpose of a sideboard, and, instead of being ordinary, ugly things, are so

decorative that no one ever enters my room without noticing them and asking me where they are to be procured. I have had mine some years now, but extremely nice ones are made by Mr. Smee, the prices beginning at 6l. 6s. in plain deal ready for painting any special hue to suit any room, to 10l. 10s. each in oak or walnut; and I very strongly recommend them to people who really wish their home to be artistic, and not a mere warehouse for necessary furniture, for while they answer the same purpose as a sideboard, they are pretty to look at, and would not be out of place in an ordinary sitting-room.

Up to this present moment I have said nothing about the colour or arrangement of the walls of the dining-room, and so, before proceeding to dilate on the rest of the furniture, I will here give my readers a few hints on this subject. In the first place, then, let all people about to furnish determine that their dining-room shall be cheerful somehow, and let them eschew anything like dark colours or dingy papers, refusing to listen to the voice of the charmer, who has his ‘appropriate’ designs to sell, and does not care in the least for your ideas on the subject; and, having mentally selected the colour that appeals to their taste, let them refuse manfully to be talked out of their purpose by a man who has no ideas beyond the conventional ones of dark colours for a dining and light ones for a drawing-room.

For those people who can afford it, I advise invariably a plain gold Japanese leather paper, with a bold red and gold leather paper as a dado. The plain paper is 4s. 6d. a piece of nine yards, French or narrow width; the dado paper is 1s. 6d. a yard. All the paint in the room should be the exact shade of the red of the ground of the paper, and the painter should be instructed to keep entirely to one shade of paint, to do no ‘picking out’ or embellishments at all, but to paint wainscot, shutters, dado rail, and doors alike in one uniform shade of a good red, mixing the last coat with varnish, or else giving one coat of Mr. Aspinall’s invaluable enamel paint, which gives a smooth and polished appearance, particularly suitable for this special tint of red. The dado rail is sold by Maple ready to put up at 2¼d. a foot; thus it would be easy for any one to calculate exactly how much such a scheme of decoration would cost. Then the ceiling should be papered in pale yellow and white. The cornice should in no case be outlined or ‘picked out’ with colours, but should be a uniform shade of cream, thus just shading into the paper without calling attention to itself.

Here let me pause for one moment to impress emphatically on my readers the great necessity of recollecting that paint and paper are after all only a background to oneself and one’s belongings, and therefore are not to be brought unduly forward. The paint must always be kept one shade of one colour; the cornice must always be coloured a deep cream, and the necessary

relief in doors and shutters is obtained by filling the panels thereof with a good Japanese leather paper, which at once causes the proper decorative effect with the expenditure of a very little money, the effect being heightened by the addition of brass locks and handles, which cost very little, and yet just add the finishing touches to the room.

Should the Japanese paper be too expensive, the red effect could be obtained by one of Pither’s papers with a bold frieze in a good floral design. This is united to the paper by a frieze or picture rail, sold by Maple at 2¼d. a foot unpainted, and from this frieze the pictures hang on brass hooks made on purpose; these are about 2s. 6d. a dozen; and the pictures are suspended from them on copper wires; this, however, only answers where there is no gas, as gas corrodes the wire rather quickly, and then cords must be used; but where there is no gas the copper answers perfectly, and looks far better than anything else can possibly do.

Should red be objected to altogether—and I hope it may not be—here is another scheme of decoration; a dark sage-green paper, with a very little gold in it; a gold and green Japanese leather dado; all the paint one shade of sage-green, and a terra-cotta and white ceiling paper; terra-cotta serge or damask curtains edged with ball fringe, and a sage-green tablecloth with pale terra-cotta border. With the red decoration the curtains &c. can be a rather faint pinky terra-cotta; this produces an excellent effect, while in some rooms a dull blue would harmonise most excellently with the red. Let me mention one other trifle: always insist on that ghastly round in the centre of the ceiling, above the gaselier, being removed. Workmen always say this is impossible, just as they generally declare they cannot paint over graining; but it is quite an easy business, and makes an immense difference in the appearance of any room, and is another ‘little-thing’ the forgetting of which always annoys one, and spoils what might otherwise be a perfect whole.

I generally advise a dado in the dining-room, because of the rubbing the paper always receives from the backs of the chairs; but this said rubbing can be obviated by putting all round the room on the floor against the wainscot a two-inch border of wood. This does not show if painted to match the wainscot, and always keeps off a great deal of the wear and tear the wall receives. Yet sometimes, when the paper is a really handsome one, a dado can be dispensed with for some time; the placing of one when the paper itself has been up a few years having the effect often of making a new room of it, and doing away with the re-papering process; which is always such a terror by reason of the dilatoriness and utter worthlessness of many of the British workmen we are forced to employ, painters, as a rule, being the most unsatisfactory of all; and I am quite sure many young men who now starve genteelly as clerks, either in or out of place, could earn much more money, and be constantly employed too, if they would take to honest papering and painting, and carry out our ideas in our houses for us, giving us honest, sober work in return for honest pay. However, we must not sermonise more than we can help; and having suggested a few ideas for covering the walls and buying the most necessary articles of furniture, I now proceed to dwell upon those small extras which will make the room comfortable, should Edwin have to sit in it when he is at home and has letters to write; or should the bride-elect be obliged sometimes to make it her morning room, to save the fire, or the extra work caused by a third room to a servant. A simple window-seat, as in sketch 11, can often be placed in a suburban bow-windowed villa, and at once makes a cosy seat. This frame costs 7s., and can be made by a local carpenter.

The top is made of sacking, and takes four yards at about 1s. a yard; the front is made from a deep frill of cretonne lined with unbleached calico, and is sewn on rings (fig. 12). These are suspended on nails, and the whole of the top is cushioned with cretonne, cretonne cushions being sewn on rings and hung on the wall to make a back for these seats. The description of arrangement of curtains suitable for this will be found in the chapter on curtains; and I maintain that no girl or woman either need consider it a hardship if she have to spend her morning sewing or reading here, while she could write her necessary letters at the desk prepared for her husband, and which is a necessity in any house for a man who has accounts to keep and letters to write. Still, if Edwin is not a very much better specimen of a husband than the ordinary smoker of the period makes, Angelina will have to sit in her third room sometimes, for there is nothing more trying than an atmosphere of stale smoke, and I look forward to a time when men of the rising generation will be a little less selfish than they are at present in their indulgence in a habit that, so far as I can perceive, has not one merit to recommend it.

How often am I asked by girls how they can get rid of the disagreeable effects of smoke after dinner! They say—and very rightly too—that they really dread breakfast-time, and that their morning is poisoned for them by the indescribable odour that greets them when they come down refreshed from their night’s rest to take up their day’s work cheerfully; that it would be worse if Edwin smoked in the drawing-room, and they have no small room where they could allow him and his friends to work their wicked will, and that therefore they feel hopeless. And I cannot keep from wondering why men should smoke as they do; and thinking over this, and remembering how terrible it has been to me to come down to stale smoke, I should like to beg Edwin seriously to consider whether he need indulge in this habit in his own domicile, and whether the save of his after-dinner cigar would not conduce to his happiness as well as to Angelina’s comfort; and really I have small heart to describe how Edwin can have a comfortable corner in his dining-room when I feel convinced the more comfortable he is made the worse effect it will have on everything in any pretty room.

I often wonder if men ever reflect on what their smoke costs them—how many delightful books, pleasant journeys, pretty engravings and photographs, and, in fact, all sorts of pleasant and permanent belongings, fly off into thin air by means of those pipes and cigars that really seem part of a man at present, and, in fact, are far too often their first thoughts.

I am not speaking for myself, gentle reader. The atmosphere of smoke is absent from my own especial domicile, and is reserved for my atom of a conservatory, should an occasional spoiled friend come down and look miserable without his pipe or cigarette—for cigars I cannot have even there; but I am writing for all the young people who are beginning life, and who think they make their husbands happy by giving them carte blanche to do just ‘as they like in their own house.’

My dear girls, you cannot make a greater mistake with your husbands, and later on with your sons, than to wait upon them and give in to all their little lazinesses and selfishnesses at home. It may sound ridiculous, but it is a fact that old coats and slippers in the home circle mean manners to correspond; that bad manners often show a bad heart; and that a man is far more likely to care for the wife who exacts the small attentions that would have been lavished on the bride, than for her who opens the door for herself, rings the bell when he is in the room, and fetches things for him to save him steps that ought to be taken for her and not by her; and that boys who are allowed to bully and ‘fag’ their sisters and their mother are sure to make the selfish, inconsiderate husbands of which we hear so much nowadays.

And this great smoke question means a great deal too. It is a selfish, disagreeable habit, verily; and I can but hope that Edwin will think of this when in his pretty dining-room, and confine himself to the garden or conservatory with the door shut, even if he does not seriously consider how many pleasures for both vanish into smoke with the fumes of his post-prandial cigar; while the odours in which he condemns Angelina to begin her day would be done away with, and cheerfulness reign instead of dulness and a sense of nausea that are most trying to any one who does not like cigars.

Hoping that these words may have due effect, we will contemplate allowing our bridegroom to have a comfortable armchair in one corner of the room, and a big desk in another. The armchair, of course, is rather a serious item, and should really be made for the person who intends to sit in it. This naturally means an expenditure of from 8l. to 10l., according to the covering; so this may be done without until Edwin is older, if he cannot afford it. Now, in that case, I should recommend his buying one of those delightful low wicker-work chairs, which can be bought anywhere for 5s. or 6s. This can be painted to match the room, or ebonised with Aspinall’s lovely and invaluable enamel paints—paints that have a glaze upon them and wear beautifully, and can be applied at home, and it can be cushioned by any local upholsterer, or even by Angelina herself, if she be clever with her fingers. The best material for covering these chairs is undoubtedly a strong tapestry at about 5s. 6d. a yard. Maple has the best-designed tapestries for the money in London, and one should be carefully chosen to harmonise with the room; the cushion should be tied in its place, or sewn in its place, with very strong tapes or thread, and should be buttoned down. It takes two and a quarter yards double width material and four and a half single width to make a cushion for the sides and seat, and the seat cushion should be finished off with a frill two inches wide. The comfort of these chairs is much enhanced by the addition of a small square soft cushion to fill up the hollow in the centre and stuff into one’s back. These can be easily made either out of paper torn up and rolled into strips and then put into a piece of twilled cotton for a case, and a second case made from the material saved out of the chair covering itself, or small down cushions can be bought at Whiteley’s in Turkey-pattern materials which can be hidden in a covering like the chair, as suggested above, or—whisper this, please—the hair-cushions placed in the back of ladies’ skirts now can be utilised for stuffing these cushions to far more advantage than if they were retained in the position suggested by the dressmaker; and then the appearance of the chair is complete, with the addition of a Turkish embroidered antimacassar at 2s., which always makes any chair look nice, and even expensive (see Illustration 13). These chairs can be bought, enamelled any colour and cushioned complete, for 31s. 9d. at Colbourne’s, 82 Regent Street, W., made to my pattern.

If you have a more expensive chair, do not buy one with a straight back; comfortable as they look, they are no use in practice, and every chair should be rounded for comfort, even if our grandmothers would shake their heads over the decadence of a generation that requires round backs to their chairs. Then there should be solid square arms on which books can be placed, if we like to put one down for a few moments, or even a cup of tea allowed to stand there, should it be necessary. Mr. Smee made me such a chair—it was 8l. 18s. 6d., I think—and I would not part with it on any consideration. It is covered with a very beautifully designed tapestry, and is trimmed with a deep woollen fringe, knotted and headed with broad gimp, and is simply perfect; but he took an immense amount of trouble about it, and made it to suit me, going on the same plan as that on which the wicker chairs are formed, only making mine higher from the ground, the lowness of the wicker chairs being their only failing; and even this, of course, is no failing in the eyes of a great many of our younger brothers and sisters.

Edwin’s desk should be wide and strong, and should have good deep drawers. This can be bought ready made for about 12l., but I can provide a similarly convenient article for 2l. 15s.; that is to say, I can provide Edwin with ideas on the subject that any small carpenter can carry out. I have had for years a writing-table made by our own carpenter which cost me 2l. 5s., and is now doing honourable service as a dressing-table in a boy’s room. It was made simply in deal, had three very deep drawers on each side, and one flat long drawer at the top; and the top was covered neatly with a piece of Japanese leather paper, which was quite as serviceable as good leather. I then had it nicely painted to match the room, added brass handles and locks, and had an extremely pretty desk or dressing-table for very little money. It is now painted a very beautiful blue, Aspinall’s hedge-sparrow’s-egg blue, and is most useful; deep drawers in a desk or dressing-table meaning comfort, for there is nothing more uncomfortable than having nowhere to put one’s things. Good inkstands—indeed, the best I know is the deep blue-and-white china one to be bought at the Baker Street Bazaar for sixpence—should never be forgotten. Two should be bought, one for red and one for black (there is no ink, by the way, like Stephens’ blue-black fluid; I cannot write without it, and always take it with me wherever I go); a box for string, filled, a post-card case, a letter-weigher, and a date-card and candlestick, and also a tray for sealing-wax, pens, ink-eraser, &c., all should find places on the desk, and above it, or on one side, should hang something to hold letters—a basket at 4½d. does beautifully; beneath it should be a wastepaper basket, and if Angelina be wise she will have a sack in a cupboard from some paper works, into which all pieces of wastepaper should be put. The sack soon fills, and from disposing of the contents there are seven shillings, which come in handily for plants, or flowers, or any of the many trifles that seem nothing to buy, but that run away somehow with so very much money—trifles making up life after all. If possible, keep a bunch of flowers on the desk. I am never without one winter or summer, and there is ample room on the desk I describe for this and also for dictionaries, two plants, and three brass pigs taking a walk, which I always use as a letter-weight.

The dining-room desk should always be looked after by the mistress herself, who should also take care that fresh ink, pens that will write, a blotting-book, and wastepaper basket are in every room in the house that is used, including the spare bedroom. Seeing to this often saves a good deal of time and temper too; for I know of nothing more irritating than to have to write a note in a hurry and have nothing handy to do it with.

The dining-room, or, indeed, any room, would not be complete without a few words on the subject of the mantelpiece, which is always rather a difficult matter to arrange; for one must have a clock there, and that means expense, unless we are content with a very charming specimen Oetzmann, of the Hampstead Road, used to sell for 25s. I have had one three, nay, four, years in my drawing-room, and it still goes excellently. It is blue, and in a tall slender black case. It is called the Chippendale clock. I dare say he keeps them still. Then there should be candles in blue and white china candlesticks, and any pretty ornaments Angelina may have, and, if none are given her, why, 1l. judiciously laid out at Liberty’s or the Baker Street Bazaar will furnish more than one mantelshelf delightfully. I could make my readers smile over my hunt sixteen years ago for some nice candlesticks if I had the time, and could contrast my difficulties then with the embarras de richesse now. But space does not allow of these digressions. Still, whatever else is done without, let us be sure to have a couple of well-filled spillcases, and a matchbox with matches in it fixed to the wall; though, if we have the ordinary marble incubus of the orthodox suburban residence to deal with, we shall have to think over the mantelpiece question most seriously, for this is indeed a burning question, and one that would daunt the stoutest heart to answer satisfactorily, and I look forward hopefully to a time when builders will eschew the expensive and ugly marble in favour of wooden mantelpieces, which are, to my mind, all they ought to be.

In the first place, a wooden mantelpiece continues, as it were, the scheme of decoration of the room, and, without being unduly prominent, makes the necessary unobtrusive frame for the fireplace that a staring white marble erection can never be. And, in the second, any stain from smoke can be washed off the painted mantelpiece, while a few days’ carelessness, a smoky chimney, or a housemaid’s unclean paws can ruin a marble mantelpiece beyond the hope of redemption; therefore on all accounts I think a wooden one is to be preferred.

Of course, some people, even in a small house, regard the possession of the marble in the light of a patent of nobility—it is so handsome (odious word), so genteel; but these belong to the hopeless class, for whom little or nothing can be done. As an illustration of what I mean, I may tell you I once was asked by one of these individuals to come down to her country house and give my opinion on the subject of some wall-papers she was hesitating between; and when I entered her drawing-room, where my lady was not, but was heard scouring about upstairs, hastily changing her dress to be fit to be seen at four o’clock in the afternoon, I saw just such a gorgeous marble erection, and, in a species of compromise between the taste of the day and the sense of proud possession given by the marble, there was a valance hung round the edge of the shelf, supported, or rather tied on, with tapes, so that the fact of the material of which the shelf was made was visible to the eye of the visitor. I could not take my eyes off it, and on learning that my opinion was asked in reference to the room in which I was, I asked about the valance, suggesting how ridiculous it looked suspended, poor thing, in mid-air, and hinting that a board would give it a reason for its existence; but this was received with so much surprise that I could not recognise how beautiful the marble was, that I got out of the room as soon as I could, knowing that here any advice I could give would be utterly thrown away. In a great house where gorgeousness, not prettiness, reigns, marble is, of course, more in place than it is with us, but I do not like it at all in our cold native land, where our grey skies and dark atmosphere cry out for colour, and I would relegate it to Italy, where it contrasts charmingly with the ardent skies and glowing air inseparable from that land of sun and flowers. I do hope some builder, who is intent on building houses for the Edwins and Angelinas of the day, may read my humble words, and, turning his back on the marble, may put up in the pretty residences that are now the rule and not the exception the simple wooden mantelpiece that lends itself so kindly to decoration, and does not assert itself like the ‘handsomer’ one does in a small house—in a manner that resembles a rich relation come to call, and reduce the poor connection to a sense of his position and utter lowliness.

The mantelpiece of wood can have one or two little shelves in the comers under the shelf itself; here can be placed cups or vases for flowers. Then comes the shelf itself, and finally the over-mantel. In one of my rooms where the slate mantelpiece is hopeless, I have covered the top with a plain board, painted turquoise blue, the colour of the room. This is edged by a goffered frill of cretonne, like the curtains, about a foot deep. It is nailed on the front of the board, and the nails hidden by a moulding, also painted blue. Over this I have a glass about two feet wide with a bevelled edge, and framed in plain deal, painted blue, and surmounted by a shelf about four inches wide, supported by two small blue brackets. Of course the frame of the fireplace ought to be blue too, and it is a sore subject, I can tell you, that it is not; but being of black slate it is not so trying as it might be—not so trying, for example, as another room would have been had I not boldly painted its odious yellow and white marble mantelpiece black, to match my paint, and so removed an eyesore that looked like nothing so much as poached eggs very badly cooked and sent to table. I did go through the farce of asking my good and indulgent landlord, who, fortunately for me, was artistic, and gave his consent freely; but I am afraid, even if he had not, I should have painted it quite as boldly, and trusted to ‘luck’ to have escaped any fearful penalty when my lease was up, and I left my decorations behind me for some one else—decorations that include another painted mantelpiece, this time a dull grey stone thing, that is quite lovely in a terra-cotta coat of paint, and its top covered, as I have just described the blue covering, with a terra-cotta painted board, and a frill of blue and white Mysore chintz.

I am always being reminded of how much a fireplace is in a room by going into quite charming chambers where nothing is wanting save and excepting a nice arrangement there. The whole room is spoiled, and the ugliness there contrasts so forcibly with the rest of the room that I can never avoid mentioning it, and begging the owner to call at Shuffery’s, in Welbeck Street, whose cheap wooden mantelpieces and tiled hearths cannot possibly be too widely known, and are cheaper than those of any other firm: though, of course, a clever draughtsman can make his own designs, and a wooden mantelpiece could be made by an ordinary carpenter, but the ‘stuff’ must be well seasoned and carefully put up, so us to have no risk of fire.

Always, if possible, have a tiled hearth and a very simple fender. A gorgeous fender is a mistake; if a tiled hearth is provided all one requires is a black frame to enclose the hearth, with two brass knobs just to brighten it up; then get some brass fire-irons and two standards at Maple’s or else at Hampton’s, where brass things are very good and cheap, and, if in any way obtainable, see your grates are Barnard’s. They save their cost in coal in a very short time, and are very pretty and simple. I have one that cost a little over 4l.; it has a simple black frame, enclosing some pretty blue and white tiles, and has firebrick sides and bottom, and is as low as the hearthstone. The fire in this grate keeps alight from about 11 A.M. until 2 P.M. in the coldest winter weather, and I have never once during that time to ring for coals. Another ordinary stove during the same hours has to be continually watched and replenished, and while the blue and white room is always hot, the other room, possessed of the all-devouring grate, is never even warm, and sometimes one end thereof is hardly above freezing point. I have an equally good grate in the drawing-room, and here a fire made up at eight burns steadily until eleven at night, and often is quite a gorgeous fire at bedtime. I believe these grates are made at Norwich, but Shuffery sends them or similar grates equally satisfactory with his wooden mantelpieces; which, by the way, are supplied with Doulton ware fenders like the tiled hearths. These save needless trouble to the servants, as they only require dusting and an occasional wash-over to be always clean.

While we are on the subject of fires, I can tell my readers of a comfortable manner to keep in a fire in a bedroom or drawing-room, when a fire is wanted, but not a ‘regular blazer.’ To insure there being a fire, line the bottom and front of the grate with a newspaper, then fill it up, nearly to the top of the fireplace, with quite small coal, on the top of this lay an ordinary fire, with nice lumps of bright coal, wood, &c., and set light to it; this fire will burn downwards steadily, and can be left to take care of itself; and then, when the room is required for use, all that is wanted is a judicious poke, and a pretty cheerful blaze rewards you, while you have the satisfaction of knowing your fire is in, and no waste of fuel to any appreciable extent is going on, should the room not be in occupation.

Before I end this chapter I may just give some few hints as to what to do with our fireplaces when a fire is not necessary though, in my own case, an open Japanese umbrella suffices, because the temperature in England changes so quickly and so often that I scarcely can feel fires are an impossibility; but quite a pretty change in the room can be made by placing the sofa or the grand piano straight across the fireplace, of course removing fender, &c., and so making it appear as if it had vanished; while another nice effect is made with putting a fender made of virgin cork instead of the ordinary one, and filling up the grate with great ferns and flowering plants or cut flowers, frequently changed, for nothing save the ubiquitous aspidistra lives comfortably in this lowly and draughty situation. The cork fender should be filled with moss, and then jam pots sunk in it full of water; in these arrange your flowers: put a hand-basin in the grate itself, and bend large leaves of the Filix mas. fern over the edges; these completely cover the bars of the grate; then large peonies can be arranged in the basin, and the whole looks like a bank of flowers. This can only be managed in a country room, where flowers are plentiful; but not a bad fire-screen is made from a wire frame with a deep flower trough in front; ivy should be trained all over the frame, and then flowers and ferns can be arranged in the trough at it small cost. Let this, however, be done only in one room in the house. Never put it out of your power to have a fire whenever you feel cold. No one knows how much illness is saved by this small precaution.

One or two things must also be remembered before we leave the dining-room altogether. Footstools must be provided, and by the side of the grate should hang a bass brush to keep the hearth tidy, a pair of bellows to coax a lazy fire, and a fan to screen any one who should dislike the blaze in their eyes; and the wall-paper will last all the longer if a Japanese paper fan is nailed in such a manner that the bristles of the brush rest on it and not on the wall; just as the carpet will last longer if the coalscuttle stands on its own small linoleum mat, which can be painted any colour with Aspinall’s paint, and will always wash clean, cheerfully every day.

CHAPTER VIII.
THE MORNING-ROOM.

Even in a small house I very strongly advise the third room to be set aside emphatically for the mistress’s own room—sacred to her own pursuits, and far too sacred to be smoked in on any occasion whatever. And this room can hardly be made too pretty in my eyes, for undoubtedly here will be struck the key-note of the house, for the chamber set aside for the mistress of the house is unconsciously a great revealer of secrets. Is she dreamy, lazy, and untidy?—her room tells of her. Is she careful, neat, energetic?—her room brightens up and bears witness to her own character. Does she write?—these are her pens, and her dirty little inkstand, looking like business; or work, or paint? Well, ask the room sacred to her use; it will tell you of her much better than I can, and if she be only an honest English girl, anxious to rule her house well, and to really make it ‘home,’ her room will disclose all this, and will be always ready for her, and for any one else who will come to her there for the help, pleasure, or counsel she in her turn will be so happy to give once she has bought her own little experience.

Or should it happen that Angelina has no pronounced tastes, and does not intend to plunge head-first among the bread-winners with pen or pencil, she will have all the easier task in arranging her tiny room. On the walls we may hang a pretty sage-green paper, taking great care there is no arsenic in it. In the recesses of the walls beside the fireplace I should put shelves, painted sage-green, the colour of the paint, and edged with narrow frills of cretonne similar to that used on the mantel-board; these are sewn on tapes, and the tapes nailed to the shelves, and hidden by a moulding similar to the one on the board. And should Angelina desire a cheap, useful species of cupboard, one of these shelf-fitted recesses can be draped by a cretonne curtain, which would look pretty, the while it hid any baskets or boxes or odds and ends wished out of sight yet close at hand at the same time. These shelves are put in to the height of the mantelpiece, and, the tops being wide, hold a nice quantity of decorative china, and, being backed by fans or large blue and white plates, bought very cheaply at almost any glass and china warehouse, add immensely to the artistic appearance of the room, the walls of which will, I hope, be hung with pretty photographs or engravings, or sketches of home friends, or places, done by friends or even by our bride herself.

If she can paint, or has any girl friend who can do so, she should now embellish her door panels with graceful pale pink flowers, remembering never to fall into that fatal and ugly mistake of drawing or representing flowers in the colours that nature herself never uses for them. There is my favourite pink flower, the flowering rush, to be remembered, and this pictured among its own surroundings, marguerite daisies and long grasses, would be admirable on the sage-green paint, and doing this will occupy Angelina nicely during those long hours that are hers when the honeymoon is over, and Edwin has once more to put his neck into the collar and set to work to keep the little house going.

I should also like Angelina to keep round her in this her own room as many reminiscences as she can procure of her old home. If she have a prudent, loving mother, I think many a little imprudence may be avoided, if a photograph of the dear face is always looking down upon her; and if she have an honoured father, his precepts will be recalled in a similar manner, and insensibly she will be helped on her way, as she was in her girlhood, by the loving counsel she can never be too old to require, live as long as ever she may.

Then there should always be something here in the shape of a desk, for Angelina will have to write letters, if only to answer invitations, though I trust sincerely she may have something better to do with her time than that. And if she can copy Edwin’s writing table, she will find it a great comfort to her, for the deep drawers will hold paper, envelopes, and the thousand and one things she should never be without; such as string, untied, not cut off parcels, and neatly rolled up in lengths, half-sheets of letters to be used for notes to familiar friends or for tradesmen’s orders, paid bills—no unpaid ones, please—and brown papers also saved from parcels, elastic bands, and answered and unanswered letters; which, if important or private, should never be left on a desk in a letter-rack, for ‘maidens’ are but mortals, and an open epistle is too tempting a thing for most servants to leave untouched and unread. Be sure and have a wastepaper basket, and somewhere in a cupboard the sack I mentioned before, in which to put the contents of the basket at once, as soon as it is full; and do not keep any letters about in your possession once they are replied to, especially if they are chatty letters about people and their sayings and doings, but destroy them at once. They are safe in the wastepaper bag; but a letter is like a ghost, and turns up when least expected, often working irreparable mischief; in fact, in these days of penny postage, a letter is only written for the moment, and should be put beyond the power of doing harm by any honourable person the moment it has answered its purpose. Remember how often one’s opinion changes. One makes friends or quarrels with an acquaintance, and writes to one’s intimates about these tiny circumstances, and no harm is done if the letter be immediately destroyed, besides which there is always the chance that death may pounce upon one, and leave one’s hoards defenceless, and our friend’s confidences at the mercy of our successors. Who re-reads old letters? Life is too rapid now for this. Once answered, tear up these amusing, compromising epistles, and beg your correspondents to do the same, and then not very much harm will be done by them after all.

In Angelina’s room there should always be some sort of a sofa. Maple has beautiful deep sofas, I think for 8l. 8s.; these can be covered with serge, or else velveteen or corduroy velvet, in a good sage-green colour or peacock blue, and finished at either end with a square pillow or cushion covered with the same; the velveteen is 2s. 6d. a yard, and wears beautifully; it is preserved too, when not in use, by throwing over it a large cover made of either guipure and muslin, costing 30s.—rather a large item—or by two or three of the striped curtains, joined. These cost 1s. 6d. each at Liberty’s, but I personally prefer the guipure, or else a large square of Madras muslin, edged with a goffered frill, or else a cheap lace. This should be folded back, should you require to lie down much on the sofa, as otherwise it soon crushes and becomes dirty and untidy. Remember, young people, I am no advocate for lying about on sofas, and I abhor idleness, but a proper amount of rest and care often saves a long illness, and there will be times in all your lives when a sofa is not a luxury but a positive necessity. A book can always be read, or work be done, for, properly pushed down at the back, the cushions support the shoulders, the while the legs are supported too, and so proper rest is obtained; and if the sofa be in Angelina’s own room, she will use it when she would think twice before going solemnly into the drawing-room, where she may be disturbed by visitors, or be, perhaps, fireless, to take the repose she may possibly have been ordered.

There should be two firm little tables, or even three, according to space. The floor should be stained about two feet all the way round, and the square of carpet should be as pretty as possible. Flowers and pot-ferns should be as much used us the money will permit, as nothing makes a room look so nice. The curtains should be cretonne and muslin underneath, arranged as I shall describe in the chapter set apart for curtains. There should be a work-table, a stand for newspapers with a paper-knife attached—tied on, in fact, and re-tied when not in use, for no possession takes quicker to its heel than does a paper-knife—and plenty of books and magazines, obtainable from a library; or by judicious exchanges among friends or acquaintances made by advertising; for it is astonishing how many papers can be seen by a clever person, who can manage to exchange the one or two she takes in for one or two more, that in their turn go on again in exchange for others; and this is neither extravagance nor waste of time, for every one should be as well read in the events of the day, as most people are in the events of bygone years; for one’s own times are, I think, quite as amusing and far more instructive than even the events of those days when there were no newspapers and nothing very much happened.

Let me beg of you all to remember two things: one is, that on no account is this little room to have gas, or to be smoked in under any pretext whatever, and that here all must be to hand that Angelina is likely to want; she must have her own duster, her sticking-plaster, her little remedies for tiny hurts, her cotton, needles, thimble, her string, her stamps, her pins, her gum, her glue, and be able to put her hand on brandy, the one spirit that I would allow inside the house, and which is a most invaluable necessary medicine; and if she be wise and her servants are tired, she will be able to give a sister or very intimate friend her cup of afternoon tea without ringing, should they come in on a busy day and require refreshment, when it would be unkind to take Jane off her work to provide it. No lady was ever the worse for making her own tea, or even washing her own teacups, and a little thought for Jane will insure Jane thinking of and for you, in a time when you may be very dependent on her for this care and thought.

The tea-things can be kept ‘handy’ behind one of the curtained recesses, and a small brass kettle can also be concealed there; but there are some rooms, alas! so evilly constructed as to be positively without recesses for the shelves, and in this case the books that Angelina will require in her own room must have a bookcase made especially for them, and the recess for the teacups must be made as in the drawing of the bookcase on this page. The best bookcases are undoubtedly the revolving American bookcases, first introduced by Messrs. Trübner, the well-known publishers, of Ludgate Hill. These hold a great many volumes, take up small room, and on the top of them china can also be placed; but they are expensive, a good-sized one costing 5l. 5s., and so, if this be out of the question, I recommend a long plain oak bookcase that I have had made for me from the design of a relative, for they hold a vast quantity of literature, and only cost the comparatively small sum of 1l. 18s. 6d. This bookcase is about eight or nine feet long, and consists of two rows of shelves, each wide enough to hold books the size of a bound volume of ‘Good Words.’ The top of the last shelf has a narrow battlement of oak just cut out in scallops to relieve the plainness and to serve as a rail to support the china that stands on the top of the bookcase; and the shelves are all edged with a two-inch frill of velveteen or cretonne to harmonise with the rest of the room. The shelves are divided into three parts, and the centre part looks very well with a velveteen curtain over it, nailed to the top shelf, and hanging in a straight line from top to bottom. Behind this curtain can be placed all sorts and conditions of things, from paper-backed shilling books, that are not in the least bit decorative, to string or gum, or the cups and saucers spoken of above, if we have no other place to use as a cupboard in the room. The shelves are hung on the wall, just resting on the dado rail, and are supported with nails driven into the wall and by the dado rail itself. On the top the big blue jugs and coarse rod pottery Rebecca jars sold by Mr. Elliot, in the Queen’s Road, Bayswater, should be placed, as then the bookcase is not only useful but remarkably ornamental.

To supplement the ordinary lack of cupboard room, it is occasionally better to have one or two low square black cupboards about. Against the wall, where a table may be put sometimes, they look very nice, and are of incalculable use. They cost very little, and if the panels are filled in, either with Japanese paper or imitation tapestry, and the top covered with a cloth and used for books, plants, or pieces of china, scarcely any one would see they were cupboards, and so you have a useful piece of furniture doing double duty, as cupboard and table, for the expense of one. I have in one corner of my especial room a most beautiful cabinet which holds all my odds and ends comfortably, and is such a success that I cannot help describing it here, although Angelina may not of course care to go to the expense, but it is so pretty and withal so inexpensive, as compared to the usual run of cabinets, that I think I may venture to recommend it to her. It fits into one corner, and is of deal, painted sparrow’s-egg-blue to match the room. It stands about five feet eight. The under part is a cupboard. Then come three deep drawers, flanked by two little shelves—two each side of the drawers. The top shelf is hidden by a small curtain of old-gold coloured velveteen, and in the under shelf stands a blue pot that cost sixpence. There is a flat shelf forming the top of the cabinet with china on, and at the back, which goes into an angle to fit the corner, is another shelf about three inches wide on which more china stands. The drawers and cupboard have brass handles and locks, and the whole thing complete, made to order and measure by Mr. Smee, cost me 8l. 8s., and I often look at it and wonder how I existed, or where I put all my papers and things generally, before I saved up money enough to buy it for myself. The chairs here can be all the deep, low, basket-work chairs, and these need not cost much, but these chairs must be bought with great care and circumspection, they are all such different shapes, and should never be purchased in a hurry—that fatal hurry that is at the bottom of so much waste and extravagance in the world; for, remember this, a thing obtained quickly and hastily seldom is the thing one really requires, and then a double outlay is necessary, or else perpetual discomfort is our portion, just because we were not judicious enough in our behaviour to take enough time over our purchases; and nowhere is hurry more fatal than in choosing one’s chairs. You young people are apt to think only for the day, and do not care to remember that a time will come when legs and backs will ache; but I know this, and this is why I want you to be quite sure that you do not get the basket-chairs that go back too far, or are too low, or too high, but that the medium chairs are chosen, in which you can rest thoroughly when they are cushioned; and furthermore supplied with an extra cushion to fill up the gap in the back, and that are not high enough to require a footstool, but yet are not low enough to send one’s feet to sleep, because of the manner in which they leave no room for the length of limb possessed by the unfortunate person who sinks into their comfortable-looking depths to rest, and cannot understand why he is so very uncomfortable when he has been there so short a time. Cretonne makes pretty covers for the cushions, which should be stuffed with wool and a little flock—all wool would make these cushions too expensive; but cretonne is not heavy enough for a man’s wear, and either tapestry or woollen brocade or serge should be used for cushions for Edwin’s accommodation. If a sofa be afforded, three of these chairs, or four at the outside, will amply furnish the little room; and they can have over their backs, as a finishing touch, an embroidered Oriental antimacassar, arranged to show both embroidered ends one above the other, and not tied in bows—a most inartistic and ugly arrangement in my eyes, and one quite useless and untidy too; for there is no doubt that a properly arranged antimacassar saves the chair cushion a great deal of the wear and tear and the rub of dusty shoulders, and need not be any trouble if a little thought is given to their arrangement, both in sitting down and rising from the chair.

If other chairs are required, higher and squarer, although I cannot think they are necessary myself in this small room, those painted blue, red, or black, and with cane seats, costing about 12s., are the best. The cane seat should be provided with a square cushion, covered in any odd pieces of damask or cretonne, and trimmed with a frill, and tied to the chair by four pairs of stout black tape strings, so that the cushion cannot slip about, as it otherwise would. These chairs would also do for the extra chairs in the drawing-room, if even the rush-seated Beaconsfield chairs at 3s. 6d. each are not pronounced quite good enough.

A very good, useful table, called the Queen Anne table, can be obtained from Oetzmann or Maple for about 25s. It is square, with square legs, and has two useful shelves, and the whole is covered in art-coloured velveteens. I have had one in very hard wear for seven or eight years, and it is now as good as the day when I bought it. I had some charming square stools made on the same plan for 7s. 6d. each, to hold large blue and yellow pots purchased at Whiteley’s for 2s. 11d. each, and filled with palms, and these standing about in odd corners or in the centre of a bow-window add very much to the appearance of any room, for nothing gives so Oriental or artistic an appearance as plenty of plants, ferns, and palms; and these need not be out of the reach of any one who cares for pretty things, because with care they last and flourish for years; while cut flowers and flowering plants are out of the reach of any of those for whom I am especially writing these papers—that is to say, unless they keep their eyes very wide open, and utilise every morsel they can beg, or pick from the hedges and fields; that even in the suburbs are not swept quite clear of daisies, grasses, and even occasionally primroses and anemones.

Footstools must be a sine quâ non in each room, and more than one or two should, if possible, be provided. The square Oriental-looking ones, at 4s. 6d., purchasable at Shoolbred’s, are very nice, but big, square, old-fashioned ones, made by the carpenter, or, better still, by Edwin, are the best of all; they do not run away from you when you put your feet on them, and their wear is everlasting. They are square frames of wood, rather heavy, and stuffed a little with flock on the top, and covered with a good stout woollen tapestry; they are quite half a yard across each way, and serve for two people if necessary. Then there are the ordinary round hassocks for 1s. 6d., covered in odds and ends of old carpets. These are soon made artistic by covering them over the carpet with artistic serges embroidered in crewels; white narcissus, or oranges and the blossoms looking very nice indeed on a terra-cotta serge; and yellow daisies or pomegranates on a peacock-blue serge being also quite charming to behold. Brackets are very useful for corners, and I especially recommend the bamboo brackets to be bought at the Baker Street Bazaar and at Liberty’s. They are so cheap and light-looking, and hold odds and ends of china so nicely, and if many pictures or photographs do not adorn Angelina’s walls, quite a grand effect can be obtained by making a bracket the centre of a scheme of decoration; elaborated from Japanese fans, that can surround the bracket like a halo, sending out branches or beams of colour from such a centre in all directions, in a manner invaluable to those who have no other means of decorating their walls.

Were I Angelina I should sit here in this tiny room, and do my work here all the morning, having every meal in the dining-room, and resolutely spending my evenings in the drawing-room. There is, of course, rather more firing required, but not more than is necessary to warm the house thoroughly, and this will save in health and spirits far more than the house coal costs. Quite a different current to one’s thoughts is given by a change of room, and a really dull feeling often disappears when one’s surroundings are changed, and one goes into a fresh pure atmosphere; for whatever the weather is, I do hope Angelina has her windows open top and bottom, and, in fact, sleeps with them open too; but this I shall say more about when I reach the bedrooms, and talk about health, which will be later on; though before I describe the papering &c. of this little room I must beg Angelina not to fall into the habit of so many young wives, of having nothing between breakfast and dinner save perhaps cake or a cup of tea, but to have a properly cooked chop or morsel of meat at the orthodox hour for luncheon. For while I know how difficult it is to do this because eating by oneself is so dull, and it does not appear worth while to have cooking done for oneself alone, I cannot too much impress upon my bride that she must remember health is the first consideration, and that very bad effects are often caused by the manner in which proper food is forgotten or gone without in the middle of the day, a matter far too many girls never think about at all.

It is almost impossible to lay down any hard-and-fast rules for the decoration of a morning-room without seeing the room itself, but I am sure no colour is so entirely satisfactory as the blue which is the exact shade of a sparrow’s egg or an old turquoise. Mr. Smee, at my express desire, keeps this blue paper, at 4s. a piece, always in stock, and a perfect room can be made by using this paper, Aspinall’s enamel paint, the exact shade of the ground of the paper, and a frieze of dead gold Japanese paper at 3s. 6d. the piece of nine yards; a frieze or picture rail painted blue unites the frieze to the ‘filling,’ and the panels of the doors, shutters, &c., should be panelled with red and gold Japanese leather paper. The painter must not be allowed to pick out or embellish the paint at all (I cannot repeat this too often), and the cornice must be one uniform cream colour. The ceiling of this room should be papered yellow and white, and curtains could be made from the yellow printed linen sold by Mr. Pither, 38 Mortimer Street, Regent Street, at 1s. a yard, and edged by ball fringe sold by Mr. Smee at 6½d. a yard.

Another arrangement for a room which had much sun could be from a sage-green paper, with a broad frieze of one of the many beautiful floral papers to be purchased nowadays, with a good deal of pink in; or better still would it be to go to Mrs. McClelland, of 33 Warwick Road, Maida Hill, W., and get her to paint a frieze of pale pink and dark red roses on American cloth; this is put up with drawing pins and taken down like a picture, and would make a most admirable wedding present; it would certainly be a joy to any bride for all her life long, and should therefore be considered by those who are about to make a marriage gift.

In this case all the paint must be sage-green, and we must get as much pink—really pink—and peacock blue with it as we can muster. Therefore, on the mantelpiece we can have a cretonne with pale pink flowers; our over-mantel and board being painted sage-green, with, if possible, sprays of pale pink chrysanthemums or roses on. And then place on the mantelshelf first a candlestick, choosing the pretty small embossed brass ones that Maple used to have at 2s. 6d. each; then a spill-case in blue and white china, always remembering to keep them full of spills—they save a great deal of waste in winter both of matches and temper; then a photograph frame, holding a home photograph of mother, father, or sisters in an oak frame (the plush and leather ones soon soil and look tawdry); then a vase for flowers—a low shape; then one of the tall sixpenny Baker Street vases, that look beautiful with a single rose or two; marguerites or fuchsias in summer; and with grasses and ferns in winter; and then the clock, continuing the same arrangement the other side; and, despite the sneers levelled at them, use Japanese fans as a background as often as you can; the colour is so invaluable a help, and, being excellently managed, goes with anything.

The doors should be painted to match the frieze, and the over-mantel should also be decorated in a similar manner, and the ceiling should be papered with a good terra-cotta and white paper. Some terra-cotta or pink should be introduced into the chair coverings, &c., but the exact shades must be carefully chosen by some one whose eye for colour can be trusted emphatically.

This room should be under the care of the housemaid, who should dust and sweep it before breakfast, and should also see to the hall. The cook will have quite enough to do with the dining-room and her own kitchen, while the drawing-room can be left to be looked after, when the bedrooms are done and the breakfast things washed up; though the ornaments and flowers must be entirely looked after by the mistress, should she only be able to begin life with two servants.

CHAPTER IX.
THE DRAWING-ROOM.

It is quite useless to attempt to have a pretty drawing-room, unless the owner really means to have it in constant use, and intends to sit in it regularly. I am quite convinced that rooms resent neglect like human beings do, and that they become morose and sulky-looking if they are kept closed, or only opened when strangers are expected.

It is no use then to bustle about to arrange this antimacassar, or to put yonder chair just a little bit out of its constrained position, to put flowers in the vases and books on the tables, in a spasmodic attempt to give an air of life to the dead chamber. Something will betray you, the chill atmosphere will inevitably chill your friends, your constraint in an unaccustomed room will communicate itself to them, and you will infallibly all be as stiff and unhappy as you can be, without perhaps being able to define the cause.

Therefore, as your room is to be lived in, let me beg of you to buy nothing for it that you cannot replace easily, to have nothing gorgeous, or that will not stand a certain amount of careful wear and tear, for as sure as your room is too grand to be lived in every day, so sure will your acquaintances find you out, and put you down at once upon the list of dull folks to be avoided, that we all of us keep somewhere mentally or otherwise.

A light hue for a drawing-room has been found to be a necessity ever since the days—those awful days—of white papers covered with gilt stars. There is always something a little depressing about the evening. One is tired with the day’s work, worried by domestic duties, or disappointed at the very little fruit the long twelve hours have given us; and therefore we should be careful to arrange our evening-room with the intention of having cheerful surroundings, if we can have nothing else, and that is why I should like to have our drawing-room in blue, or else in yellows and whites.

I must say I still hanker after a dado, because in the drawing-room I like to hang all sorts of odds and ends upon it, which give an original air to the room, and also insures favourite photographs, fans, or pretty hanging baskets with flowers in being close to one’s chair, or near one’s eyes, should we wish to look at them. A very pretty effect is obtained by stretching a cretonne material round the base of the wall for a dado, hiding the nails with a dado rail of bamboo. Liberty’s blue and white cretonnes are invaluable for this, but then it is rather difficult to