that have run through the dripping fields.

I wonder if half the fathers and mothers in creation know just what it
means later on to the boys and girls going out from their roof-tree to
have the memory of such a living-room?

A living-room may be a simple place used for all the purposes of living,
or it may be merely an official clearing-house for family moods, one of
a dozen other living apartments. The living-room in the modern bungalow,
for instance, is often dining-room, library, hall, music-room, filling
all the needs of the family, while in a large country or city house
there may be the central family room, and ever so many little rooms that
grow out of the overflow needs--the writing-room, the tea room that is
also sun and breakfast room, the music-room and the library. In more
elaborate houses there are also the great hall, the formal drawing-room
and music-room, and the intimate boudoir. To all these should be given a
goodly measure of comfort.

Whether it be one or a dozen rooms, the spirit of it must be the
same--it must offer comfort, order, and beauty to be worth living in.

Just as when a large family is to be considered I believe in one big
meeting-room and a number of smaller rooms for special purposes, so I
believe that when a family is very small there should be one great
living-room and no other day room. Two young people who purpose to live
in a small cottage or a bungalow will be wise to have this one big room
that will serve for dining-room, living-room, and all. The same house
divided into a number of tiny rooms would suffocate them: there would be
no breathing-space. In furnishing such a room it is well to beware of
_sets_ of things: of six dining-room chairs, of the conventional
dining-table, serving-table, and china closet. I advocate the use of a
long table--four by seven feet is not too long--and a number of good
chairs that are alike in style, but not _exactly_ alike.

The chairs should not be the conventional dining-chairs. The idea that
the only dining-room chair possible is a perfectly straight up and down
stiff-backed chair is absurd. In a large house where there is a family
dining-room the chairs should be alike, but in an informal living-room
the chairs may be perfectly comfortable and useful between meals and
serve the purposes of dining-room chairs when necessary. For instance,
with a long oak table built on the lines of the old English refectory
tables you might have a long ben