auger in the panel of the door, six or eight inches away from the top, though this is only advisable if the door opens upon a tolerably airy landing or passage. If it does not, then resort to some contrivance, as cheap as you please, in the outer wall leading directly into the fresh air. In most private houses it is generally possible to arrange for those to whom an open window at night is a forbidden luxury, that they should sleep with their door open. A curtain, or screen, or even the open door itself will ensure the privacy in which we all like to do our sleeping, but there should then be some window open on an upper landing, day and night, in all weathers. Believe me, there are few nights, even in our rigorous climate, where this would be an impossibility. Of course common sense must be the guide in laying down such rules. No one would willingly admit a fog or storm of driving wind and rain into their house, but of a night when the atmosphere is so exceptionally disturbed it is sure to force its way in at every cranny, and keep the rooms fresh and sweet without the necessity of admitting a large body of air by an open window.

Supposing then that the laws of ventilation are understood and acted upon, and that certain other sanitary rules are carried out which need not be insisted upon here,—such as that no soiled clothes shall ever, upon any pretence, be kept in a bedroom,—then we come to the next cause of want of freshness in a sleeping-room:—Old walls. People do not half enough realise, though it must be admitted they understand a great deal more than they once did, how the emanations from the human body are attracted to the sides of the room and stick there. It is not a pretty or poetical idea, but it is unhappily a fact. So the only thing to be done is to provide ourselves with walls which will either wash or clean in some way, or are made originally of some material which neither attracts nor retains these minute particles.

Nothing can be at once cleaner or more wholesome than the beautiful wainscotted walls we sometimes see in the fine old country houses built in Queen Anne’s reign. A bedroom of that date, if we except the bed itself, and the probable absence of all bathing conveniences, presented a nearly perfect combination of fresh air, spotless cleanliness, and stately and harmonious beauty to the eyes of an artist or the nose of a sanitary inspector. The lofty walls of panelled oak, dark and lustrous from age and the rubbing of many generations of strong-armed old-fashioned house-maids, were walls which could neither attract nor retain objectionable atoms, and ventilation was unconsciously secured by means of high narrow windows, three in a row, looking probably due south, and an open chimney-place, innocent of “register stoves” or any other contrivance for blocking up its wide throat. Such a room rises up clearly before the eyes of my mind, and I feel certain that I shall never forget the deliciously quaint and hideous Dutch tiles in the fireplace, nor the expressive tip of Ahasuerus’ nose in the tile representing his final interview with Haman. How specially beautiful was the narrow carved ledge, far above one’s head, which served as a mantelpiece, over which simpered a faded lady with low, square-cut boddice, her fat chin held well into the throat, and a rose in her pale, wan little hand. A dado ran round this room about five feet from the floor, and I used to be mean enough, constantly, to try if it was a dust-trap, but I never could find a speck. That was because the house-maid had been taught how to wipe dust off and carry it bodily away, not merely, as Miss Nightingale complains, to disturb it from the place where it had comfortably settled itself, and disperse it about the room.

But what I remember more vividly in this room than even its old-time beauty, was the thorough conscientiousness of every detail. The cornice might fairly claim to rank as a work of art, not only from its elaboration, but from its finish. The little square carved panels on each side of the chimney, serving as supports to the mantelpiece, held but one leaf or arabesque flourish apiece, yet each corner was as sharply cut, each curve as smoothly rounded, as though it had been intended for closest scrutiny. The wood of neither walls nor floors had warped nor shrunk in all these years, and the low solid doors hung as true, the windows opened as easily, as if it had all been built yesterday. What do I say? built yesterday? Let any of us begin to declare his experience of a new, modern house, and he will find many to join in a doleful chorus of complaints about unseasoned wood, ill-fitting joists, and hurried contrivances to meet domestic ills, to say nothing of the uncomfortable effects of “scamped” work generally. In spite of our improved tools, and our greater facilities for studying and copying good designs, I am convinced that one reason why we are going back in decorative taste to the days of our great grandmothers is, that we are worn out and wearied with the evanescent nature of modern carpenter’s and joiner’s work—to say nothing of our aroused perceptions of its glaring faults of taste and tone. Unhappily we cannot go back to those dear, clean, old oaken walls. They would be quite out of the reach of the majority of purses, and would be sure to be imitated by some wretched sham planking which might afford a shelter and breeding-place for all kinds of creeping things. No; let those who are fortunate enough to possess or acquire these fine old walls treasure them and keep them bright as their grandmothers did; not whitewash them, as actually has been done more than once by way of “lightening” the room. And who shall say, after that, that the Goths have ever been successfully driven back?

I dwell on the walls of the bedroom because I believe them to be the most important from a sanitary as well as from a decorative point of view, and because there is really no excuse for not being able to make them extremely pretty. You may tint them in distemper of some delicate colour, with harmoniously contrasting lines at the ceiling, and so be able to afford to have them fresh and clean as often as you choose, or you may paint them in oils and have them washed constantly. But there is a general feeling against this cold treatment of a room which, above all others, should, in our capricious climate, be essentially warm and comfortable. The tinted walls are pretty when the curtains to go with them are made of patternless cretonne of precisely the same shade, manufactured on purpose, with exactly the same lines of colour for bordering. I am not sure, however, that the walls I individually prefer for a bedroom are not papered. There are papers made expressly, which do not attract dirt, and which can be found of lovely design. A bedroom paper ought never to have a distinct, spotted pattern on it, lest, if you are ill, it should incite you to count the designs or should “make faces at you.” Rather let it be all of one soft tint, a pearly gray, a tender sea-shell pink, or a green which has no arsenic in it; but on this point great care is requisite. You should also make it your business to see, with your own eyes, that your new paper, whatever its pattern or price, is not hung over the old one, and that the walls have been thoroughly stripped, and washed, and dried again before it is put on.

Bedroom walls, covered with chintz, stretched tightly in panels, are exceedingly clean and pretty, but they must be arranged so as to allow of being easily taken down and cleaned. The prettiest walls I ever saw thus covered, were made of chintz, with a creamy background and tendrils of ivy of half