h drawing-rooms crowded and
jammed with chairs and sofas, why more women do not realize the
advantages of stools and benches. A well-made stool is doubly useful: it
may be used to sit upon or it may be used to hold a tray, or whatever
you please. It is really preferable to a small table because it is not
always full of a nondescript collection of ornaments, which seems to be
the fate of all small tables. It has also the advantage of being low
enough to push under a large table, when need be, and it occupies much
less space than a chair apparently (not actually) because it has no
back. I have stools, or benches, or both in all my rooms, because I find
them convenient and easily moved about, but I have noticed an amusing
thing: Whenever a fat man comes to see me, he always sits on the
smallest stool in the room. I have many fat friends, and many stools,
but invariably the fattest man gravitates to the smallest stool.

The stools I like best for the drawing-room are the fine old ones,
covered with needlework or brocade, but there are many simpler ones of
plain wood with cane insets that are very good for other rooms. Then
there are the long _banquettes_, or benches, which are so nice in
drawing-rooms and hallways and nicest of all in a ballroom. Indeed, a
ballroom needs no other movable furniture; given plenty of these long
benches. They may be of the very simplest description, but when used in
a fine room should be covered with a good damask or velvet or some rich
fabric.

I have a fine Eighteenth Century _banquette_ in my drawing-room, the
frame being carved and gilded and the seat covered with Venetian red
velvet. You will find these gilded stools all over England. There are a
number at Hampton Court Palace. At Hardwick there are both long and
short stools, carved with the dolphin's scroll and covered with
elaborate stuffs. The older the English house, the more stools are in
evidence. In the early Sixteenth Century joint stools were used in every
room. In the bedrooms they served the purposes of small tables and
chairs as well. There are ever so many fine old walnut stools and the
lower stools used for bed-steps to be bought in London shops that make a
specialty of old English furniture, and reproductions of them may be
bought in the better American shops. I often wonder why we do not see
more bedside stools. They are so convenient, even though the bed be only
moderately high from the floor. Many of mine are only six i