ed by a
young housewife whose small kitchen formed part of a city apartment, and
whose practical sense was joined to a discursive imagination. After this
achievement--which she herself did not recognise as a stroke of
genius--she added a narrow shelf running entirely around the room,
which carried a decorative row of blue willow-pattern plates. A
dresser, hung with a graduated assortment of blue enamelled sauce-pans,
and other kitchen implements of the same enticing ware, a floor covered
with the heaviest of oil-cloth, laid in small diamond-shapes of blue,
between blocks of white, like a mosaic pavement, were the features of a
kitchen which was, and is, after several years of strenuous wear, a joy
to behold. It was from the first, not only a delight to the clever young
housewife and her friends, but it performed the miracle of changing the
average servant into a careful and excellent one, zealous for the
cleanliness and perfection of her small domain, and performing her
kitchen functions with unexampled neatness.

The mistress--who had standards of perfection in all things, whether
great or small, and was moreover of Southern blood--confessed that her
ideal of service in her glittering kitchen was not a clever red-haired
Hibernian, but a slim mulatto, wearing a snow-white turban; and this
longing seemed so reasonable, and so impressed my fancy, that whenever I
think of the shining blue-and-silver kitchen, I seem to see within it
the graceful sway of figure and coffee-coloured face which belongs to
the half-breed African race, certain rare specimens of which are the
most beautiful of domestic adjuncts.

I have used this expedient of oil-cloth-covered walls--for which I am
anxious to give the inventor due credit--in many kitchens, and certain
bathrooms, and always with success.

It must be applied as if it were wall-paper, except that, as it is a
heavy material, the paste must be thicker. It is also well to have in it
a small proportion of carbolic acid, both as a disinfectant and a
deterrent to paste-loving mice, or any other household pest. The cloth
must be carefully fitted into corners, and whatever shelving or wood
fittings are used in the room, must be placed against it, after it is
applied, instead of having the cloth cut and fitted around them.

When well mounted, it makes a solid, porcelain-like wall, to which dust
and dirt will not easily adhere, and which can be as easily and
effectually cleaned as if it we