uld be treated with materials which are durable and have surface
quality, although its decoration should be preferably with china rather
than with pictures. It is important that the colour of a dining-room
should be pervading colour--that is, that walls and ceiling should be
kept together by the use of one colour only, in different degrees of
strength.

For many reasons, but principally because it is the best material to use
in a dining-room, the rich yellows of oiled wood make the most desirable
colour and surface. The rug, the curtains, the portieres and screen, can
then be of any good tint which the exposure of the room and the
decoration of the china seem to indicate. If it has a cold, northern
exposure, reds or gold browns are indicated; but if it is a sunny and
warm-looking room, green or strong India blue will be found more
satisfactory in simple houses. The materials used in curtains,
portieres, and screens should be of cotton or linen, or some plain
woollen goods which are as easily washable. A one-coloured,
heavy-threaded cotton canvas, a linen in solid colour, or even
indigo-blue domestic, all make extremely effective and appropriate
furnishings. The variety of blue domestic which is called denim is the
best of all fabrics for this kind of furnishing, if the colour is not
too dark.

The prettiest country house dining-room I know is ceiled and wainscoted
with wood, the walls above the wainscoting carrying an ingrain paper of
the same tone; the line of division between the wainscot and wall being
broken by a row of old blue India china plates, arranged in groups of
different sizes and running entirely around the room. There is one small
mirror set in a broad carved frame of yellow wood hung in the centre of
a rather large wall-space, its angles marked by small Dutch plaques; but
the whole decoration of the room outside of these pieces consists of
draperies of blue denim in which there is a design, in narrow white
outline, of leaping fish, and the widening water-circles and showery
drops made by their play. The white lines in the design answer to the
white spaces in the decorated china, and the two used together in
profusion have an unexpectedly decorative effect. The table and chairs
are, of course, of the same coloured wood used in the ceiling and
wainscot, and the rug is an India cotton of dark and light blues and
white. The sideboard is an arrangement of fixed shelves, but covered
with a beautiful collecti