y of American builders nowadays is to
use two large glass sashes instead of the small or medium-sized panes of
older times.

This is very bad from the standpoint of the architect, because these
huge squares of glass suggest holes in the wall, whereas the square or
oblong panes with their straight frames and bars advertise their
suitability. The housewife's objection to small panes is that they are
harder to clean than the large ones, but this objection is not worthy of
consideration. If we really wish to make our houses look as if they were
built for permanency we should consider everything that makes for beauty
and harmony and hominess. There is nothing more interesting than a
cottage window sash of small square panes of glass unless it be the
diamond-paned casement window of an old English house. Such windows are
obviously windows. The huge sheets of plate glass that people are so
proud of are all very well for shops, but they are seldom right in small
houses.

I remember seeing one plate glass window that was well worth while. It
was in the mountain studio of an artist and it was fully eight by ten
feet--one unbroken sheet of glass which framed a marvelous vista of
mountain and valley. It goes without saying that such a window requires
no curtain other than one that is to be drawn at night.

The ideal treatment for the ordinary single window is a soft curtain of
some thin white stuff hung flat and full against the glass. This curtain
should have an inch and a half hem at the bottom and a narrow hem at the
sides. It should be strung on a small brass rod, and should be placed as
close to the glass as possible, leaving just enough space for the window
shade beneath it. The curtain should hang in straight folds to the
window sill, escaping it by half an inch or so.

I hope it is not necessary for me to go into the matter of lace curtains
here. I feel sure that no woman of really good taste could prefer a
cheap curtain of imitation lace to a simple one of white swiss-muslin. I
have never seen a house room that was too fine for a swiss-muslin
curtain, though of course there are many rooms that would welcome no
curtains whatever wherein the windows are their own excuse for being.
Lace curtains, even if they may have cost a king's ransom, are in
questionable taste, to put it mildly. Use all the lace you wish on your
bed linen and table linen, but do not hang it up at your windows for
passers-by to criticize.

[Illustra