f the room. Though she receives her formal calls in the
drawing-room, it is in her bedroom that those confidential chats, so
dear to the feminine heart, take place; therefore its background must
be chosen with some idea of its becomingness, and the happy medium in
color and tint selected, softening and becoming to all alike. As
absence of manners is good manners, so absence of effect is, after all,
the best effect. First and foremost, avoid the plague of white walls
and ceilings, which cast a ghastly light over the whole room and make
one fairly shiver with cold. The general plan is to shade the color up
from floor to ceiling, and this is accomplished in so many differing
and equally attractive ways that it is impossible to do more than offer
suggestions which may be elaborated to suit individual tastes and
conditions. Of course calcimine is the simplest and cheapest style of
decoration, and recommends itself to the anti-germ disciple because it
can be renewed annually at slight expense. The only difficulty lies in
getting just the right tint, for decorators, though no doubt worthy of
their hire, are not always capable of handling the artistic side of
their business, and an uncongenial shade gets on the nerves after a
while. The same thing holds true of painted walls and ceilings, though
they too are hygienically good. When we come to papers, we are lost in
a maze of stripes and garlands and nosegays, either alone or in
combination. Prettiness is by no means synonymous with expense these
days, when the general patterns and colors of costly papers are
successfully reproduced in the cheaper grades. Tapestry papers are too
heavy for bedrooms. Those figured with that mathematical precision
which drives the beholder to counting and thence to incipient insanity,
and others on which we fancy we can trace the features of our friends,
are always distracting, especially during illness, when restfulness is
so essential. The plain cartridge-papered wall with frieze and ceiling
either flowered or of a light shade of the same or a contrasting color
is never obtrusive and always in good taste. With a flowered wall a
plain ceiling is a relief, and vice versa. Figures in both walls and
ceiling are tiring, besides having none of the effect resulting from
contrast. Walls in plain stripes need to be livened with a fancy
ceiling, or ceiling and frieze, with their background always of the
lightest tint in the side wall. One roo