g-table never strikes a false note, never "gets
out of the picture" by becoming too important as to setting or menu.
You may live very formally in your town house and very simply, without
any ostentation, in the country, but be sure that in all of your
experimenting with table decoration you observe above all the law of
appropriateness.

Your decoration, flowers, fruit, character of bowl or dish which holds
them, or _objet d'art_ used in place of either; linen or lace, china,
glass and silver,--each and all must be in keeping. The money value
has nothing whatever to do with this question of appropriateness, when
considered by an artist decorator. Remember that in decorating,
things are classified according to their colour value, their lines and
the purpose for which they are intended. The dining-table is to eat
at, therefore it should primarily hold only such things as are
required for the serving of the meal. So your real decoration should
be your silver, glass and china, with its background of linen or lace.
The central decoration, if of flowers or fruit, must be in a bowl or
dish decorative in the same sense that the rest of the tableware is.

Flowers should be kept in the same key as your room. One may do this
and yet have infinite variety. Tall stately lilies, American Beauty
roses, great bowls of gardenias and orchids are for stately rooms.
Your small house, flat or bungalow require modest garden flowers such
as daffodils, jonquils, tulips, lilies-of-the-valley, snapdragons, one
long-stemmed rose in a vase, or a cluster of shy moss-buds or nodding
tea-roses.

A table set with art in the key of a small menage and on a scale of
simple living, often strikes the note of perfection from the expert's
point of view because perfect of its kind and suitable for the
occasion. This appropriateness is what makes your "smart" table quite
as it makes your "smart" woman.

Wedgwood cream colour ware "C.C." is beautiful and always good form.
For those wanting colour, the same famous makers of England have an
infinite variety, showing lovely designs.

Unless you are a collector in the museum sense, press into service all
of your beautiful possessions. If you have to go without them, let it
be when you no longer own them, and not because they are hoarded out
of sight. You know the story of the man who bought a barrel of apples
and each day carefully selected and ate those that were rotten,
feeling the necessity of not being wa