se and
therefore harmony of effect. The room was made for conversation, for
hospitality.

A narrow landing connects the dining-room and the drawing-room. The
color of the dining-room has grown of itself, from the superb Chinese
rug on the floor and the rare old Mennoyer drawings inset in the walls.
The woodwork and walls have been painted a soft dove-like gray. The
walls are broken into panels by a narrow gray molding, and the Mennoyers
are set in five of these panels. In one narrow panel a beautiful wall
clock has been placed. Above the mantel there is a huge mirror with a
panel in black and white relief above it. On the opposite wall there is
another mirror, with a console table of carved wood painted gray beneath
it. There is also a console table under one of the Mennoyers.

The two windows in this room are obviously windows by day, but at night
two sliding doors of mirrors are drawn, just as a curtain would be
drawn, to fill the window spaces. This is a little bit tricky, I admit,
but it is a very good trick. The dining-table is of carved wood painted
gray and covered with yellow damask, which in turn is covered with a
sheet of plate glass. The chairs are covered with a blue and gold
striped velvet. The rug has a gold ground with medallions and border of
blue, ivory and rose. Near the door that leads to the service rooms
there is a huge screen made of one piece of wondrous tapestry. No other
furniture is needed in the room.

The third floor is given over to my sitting-room, bedroom,
dressing-room, and so forth, and the fourth floor to Miss Marbury's
apartments. These rooms will be discussed in other chapters.

The servants' quarters in this house are very well planned. In the back
yard that always goes with a house of this type I had built a new wing,
five stories high, connected with the floors of the house proper by
window-lined passages. On the dining-room floor the passage becomes a
butler's pantry. On the bedroom floors the passages are large enough for
dressing-rooms and baths, connecting with the bedrooms, and for outer
halls and laundries connecting with the maids' rooms and the back
stairs. In this way, you see, the maids can reach the dressing-rooms
without invading the bedrooms. The kitchen and its dependencies occupy
the first floor of the new wing, the servants' bedrooms the next three
floors, and the top floor is made up of clothes closets, sewing-rooms,
store rooms, etc.

I firmly believe that t