steful. When the barrel was empty
he realised that be had deliberately wasted all his good apples _by
not eating one_! Let this be a warning to him who would save his
treasures. If you love antiques and have joyously hunted them down
and, perhaps, denied yourself other things to obtain them, you are the
person to use them, even though the joy be transient and they perish
at the hand of a careless man or maid-servant. Remember, posterity
will have its own "fads" and prefer adding the pleasure of pursuit to
that of mere ownership. So bring out your treasures and use them!

As there are many kinds of dining-rooms, each good if planned and
worked out with an art instinct, so there are many kinds of tables.
The usual sort is the round, or square, extension table, laid with
fine damask and set with conventional china, glass and silver, rare in
quality and distinguished in design. For those who prefer the unusual
there are oblong, squarely built Jacobean and Italian refectory
tables. With these one makes a point of showing the rich colour of the
time-worn wood and carving, for the old Italian tables often have the
bevelled edge and legs carved. When this style of table is used, the
wood instead of a cloth, is our background, and a "runner" with
doilies of old Italian lace takes the place of linen.

In Feudal Days, when an entire household, master and retainers, sat in
the baronial hall "above and below the salt," tables were made of
great length. When used out of their original setting, they must be
cut down to suit modern conditions. In Krakau, Poland, the writer
often dined at one of these feudal boards which had been in our
hostess's family for several hundred years. To get it into her
dining-room a large piece had been cut out at the centre and the two
ends pushed together.

* * * * *

For those who live informally, delightfully decorative china can be
had at low prices. It was once made only for the peasants, and comes
to us from Italy, France, Germany and England. This fact reminds us
that when we were travelling in Southern Hungary and were asked to
dine with a Magyar farmer, out on the windy Pasta, instead of their
usual highly coloured pottery, gay with crude, but decorative flowers,
they honoured us by covering the table with American ironstone china!
The Hungarian crockery resembles the Brittany and Italian ware, and
some of it is most attractive when rightly set.

When once the