living
woman! The bad taste of it would have been as apparent to them as
putting the picture of Miss Marlowe, or Lillian Russell on a chair back
would be to us.

The finish is another matter to bear in mind. There is a thick red
stain, which for some mysterious reason is called mahogany, which is put
on cheaper grades of furniture and finished with a high polish.
Fortunately, it is chiefly used on furniture of vulgar design, but it
sometimes creeps in on better models. Shun it whenever seen. The handles
must be correct also, and a glance at the different illustrations will
be of help in this matter.

The pieces of furniture used throughout a house, no matter what the
period may be, are more or less the same, so many chairs, tables, beds,
mirrors, etc., and when one has decided what one's needs are, the matter
of selection is much simplified. Of course one's needs are influenced by
the size of the house, one's circumstances, and one's manner of life.
To be successful, a house must be furnished in absolute harmony with the
life within its walls. A small house does not need an elaborate
drawing-room, which could only be had at the expense of family comfort;
a simple drawing-room would be far better, really more of a living-room.
In a large house one may have as many as one wishes.

A house could be furnished throughout with Chippendale furniture and
show no sign of monotony of treatment. The walls could be paneled in
some rooms, wainscoted in others, and papered in others. This question
of paper is one we have taken in our own hands nowadays, and although it
was not used much before the late eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries, there are so many lovely designs copied from old-time stuffs
and landscape papers, which are in harmony with the furniture, that they
are used with perfect propriety. One must be careful not to choose
anything with a too modern air, and a plain wall is always safe.

The average hall will probably need a pair of console tables and
mirrors, some chairs, Oriental rugs, a tall clock if one wishes, and, if
the hall is very large and calls for more furniture, there are many
other interesting pieces to choose from. A hall should be treated with a
certain amount of formality, and the greater the house, the greater the
amount; but it also should have an air of hospitality, of impersonal
welcome, which makes one wish to enter the rooms beyond where the real
welcome waits.

The window frames of Col