h from the floor and will gradually stretch until it
just escapes--the proper length. Single-faced materials are lined to
harmonize with the room which receives the wrong side. Lengthwise
stripes give a long, narrow effect, while crosswise stripes give an
apparent additional width, and plain materials seem to increase the
size of a doorway. Rods may be either of a wood corresponding with the
other woodwork, or of brass, with rings, sockets, and brackets of the
same material, the brass rod to be an inch in diameter and the wooden 1
1/2 inches or more and set inside the jambs.

Portieres are also of service in softening the opening of a large bay
window, making a cozy corner, or cutting off an awkward length of hall.
When a doorway is very high it is better to carry the portiere to
within a foot or so of the top, leaving the opening unfilled, or
supplying a simple grille of wood harmonizing with the wood of the
door. A pretty fashion is to introduce into this space a shelf on
which to place pieces of brass or pottery. Beaded, bamboo, and rope
affairs are neither draperies nor curtains, graceful, useful nor
ornamental, and are consequently not to be considered.

Men of science may cry "Down with draperies!"--but we members of that
choicer cult known as domestic science stand loyally by them, for
though in draperies there may he microbes, there is also largess of
coziness and geniality.

BRIC-A-BRAC

The old-fashioned "whatnot" with its hungrily gaping shelves is
responsible for many crimes committed in the name of bric-a-brac, and
calls to mind sundry specimens with which proud owners were wont to
satisfy its greed: the glass case of wax or feather flowers, flanked
and reenforced by plush photograph frames, shells, china vases shining
"giltily," silvered and beribboned toasters, peacock-feather fans, with
perhaps a cup and saucer bearing testimony to our virtue with its "For
a good girl," and other fill-upables, gone but not forgotten. And then
followed a time when mantels and bookcase tops bore certain ills in the
way of the more modern painted plaques, strings of gilded nuts,
embroidered banners, and porcelain and brass clocks so gaudy and
bedizened as to explain why time flies. But the architect has come to
the rescue with his dignified, stately mantel which repels the trivial
familiarity of meaningless decoration, and the bookcase whose simple,
quiet elegance is in itself decorative. Blessed be the noth