hes of
blue, which converts a dark and perfectly cheerless room into a glitter
of light and warmth.

The third example I shall give is of a dining-room which may be called
palatial in size and effect, occupying the whole square wing of a
well-known New York house. There are many things in this house in the
way of furniture, pictures, historic bits of art in different lines,
which would distinguish it among fine houses, but one particular room
is, perhaps, as perfectly successful in richness of detail,
picturesqueness of effect, and at the same time perfect appropriateness
to time, place, and circumstances as is possible for any achievement of
its kind. The dining-room, and its art, taken in detail, belongs to the
Venetian school, but if its colour-effect were concentrated upon canvas,
it would be known as a Rembrandt. There is the same rich shadow,
covering a thousand gradations,--the same concentration of light, and
the same liberal diffusion of warm and rich tones of colour. It is a
grand room in space, as New York interiors go, being perhaps forty to
fifty feet in breadth and length, with a height exactly proportioned to
the space. It has had the advantage of separate creation--being "thought
out" years after the early period of the house, and is, consequently, a
concrete result of study, travel, and opportunities, such as few
families are privileged to experience. Aside from the perfect
proportions of the room, it is not difficult to analyse the art which
makes it so distinguished an example of decoration of space, and decide
wherein lies its especial charm. It is undoubtedly that of colour,
although this is based upon a detail so perfect, that one hesitates to
give it predominant credit. The whole, or nearly the whole west end of
the room is thrown into one vast, slightly projecting window of clear
leaded glass, the lines of which stand against the light like a weaving
of spiders' webs. There is a border of various tints at its edge, which
softens it into the brown shadow of the room, and the centre of each
large sash is marked by a shield-like ornament glowing with colour like
a jewel. The long ceiling and high wainscoting melt away from this
leaded window in a perspective of wonderfully carved planes of antique
oak, catching the light on lines and points of projection and quenching
it in hollows of relief.

[Illustration: DINING-ROOM IN NEW YORK HOUSE SHOWING LEADED-GLASS
WINDOWS]

These perpendicular wall pa