st ten years there has been a dreadful epidemic of brass
beds, a mistaken vogue that came as a reaction from the heavy walnut
beds of the last generation. White painted metal beds came first, and
will last always, but they weren't good enough for people of
ostentatious tastes, and so the vulgar brass bed came to pass. Why we
should suffer brass beds in our rooms, I don't know! The plea is that
they are more sanitary than wooden ones. Hospitals must consider
sanitation first, last, and always, and they use white iron beds. And
why shouldn't white iron beds, which are modest and unassuming in
appearance, serve for homes as well? The truth is that the glitter of
brass appeals to the untrained eye. But that is passing. Go into the
better shops and you will see! Recently there was a spasmodic outbreak
of silver-plated beds, but I think there won't be a vogue for this
newest object of bad taste. It is a little too much!

If your house is clean and you intend to keep it so, a wooden bed that
has some relation to the rest of your furniture is the best bed
possible. Otherwise, a white painted metal one. There is never an excuse
for a brass one. Indeed, I think the three most glaring errors we
Americans make are rocking-chairs, lace curtains, and brass beds.

[Illustration: MY OWN BEDROOM IS BUILT AROUND A BRETON BED]

XV

THE DRESSING-ROOM AND THE BATH

Dressing-rooms and closets should be necessities, not luxuries, but
alas! our architects' ideas of the importance of large bedrooms have
made it almost impossible to incorporate the proper closets and
dressing-places a woman really requires.

In the foregoing chapter on bedrooms I advised the division of a large
bedroom into several smaller rooms: ante-chamber, sitting-room,
sleeping-room, dressing-room and bath. The necessary closets may be
built along the walls of all these little rooms, or, if there is
sufficient space, one long, airy closet may serve for all one's personal
belongings. Of course, such a suite of rooms is possible only in large
houses. But even in simple houses a small dressing-room can be built
into the corner of an average-sized bedroom.

In France every woman dresses in her _cabinet de toilette_; it is one of
the most important rooms in the house. No self-respecting French woman
would dream of dressing in her sleeping-room. The little _cabinet de
toilette_ need not be much larger than a closet, if the closets are
built ceiling high, and the d