The expense of making the lids into a door will not be great; a hinge on each box and a strong lock also will be necessary. Cover them with one of those hall papers, which are excellent imitations of wood, and you will have a good closet, which if you leave the house can be re-converted into packing-cases.

Whilst we are on the subject of bedrooms, we feel inclined to complete our subject by an extract from one of Leigh Hunt's charming essays: - "Order in a house," he says, "first manifests itself in the room which the housewife inhabits, and every sentiment of the heart, as well as of the external graces, demands that a very reverence and religion of neatness should be there exhibited; not formality, not a want of snugness, but all which evidences that the esteem of a life is preferred to the slatternliness of the moment.....

"Commend us (for a climate like ours) to a bedchamber of the middle order, such as it was set out about a hundred years back, and may still be seen in the houses of some old families, the room of moderate size, the fourpost-bed neatly and plentifully but not richly draperied; the chairs draperied also, down to the ground; a drapery over the toilette; the carpet a good old Turkey or Brussels, not covering the floor and easily to be taken up and shaken; the wardrobe and drawers of old shining oak, walnut, or mahogany; a few cabinet pictures, as elegant as you please; the windows with seats, and looking upon some green place; two or three small shelves of books; and the drawers, when they are open, redolent of lavender and clean linen. We dislike the cut-and-dried look of modern fashions; the cane chairs, formal-patterned carpets, and flimsy rooms; modern times (or till very lately they were so) are all for lightness and cheap sufficiency, and what is considered a Grecian elegance; they realize only an insipid or gaudy anatomy of things, a cold pretension, and houses that will tumble upon the heads of our grandchildren. But these matters, like others, are gradually improving.

If our bedroom is to be perfect it should face the east, to rouse us pleasantly with the morning sun; and in case we should be tempted to lie too long in so sweet a nest, there should be a happy family of birds at the windows to salute our rise with songs."*

Here is another charming picture by the hand of a great novelist: - "The room in which I found myself was one of those never seen out of England, and only there in unpretending country houses which have escaped the innovating tastes of fashion. A bedstead of the time of George I., with mahogany-fluted columns and panels at the bedhead, dark and polished, decorated by huge watch-pockets of some great-grandmother's embroidery, white spotless curtains, the walls in panel, and covered in part with framed engravings a century old, a large high screen separating the washstand from the rest of the room, made lively by old caricatures and prints, doubtless the handiwork of female hands long stilled A sweet, not strong, odour of dried lavender escaped from a chest of drawers polished as bright as the bedstead. The small lattice-paned window opened to the fresh air, the woodbine framing it all round from without; amongst the woodbine the low hum of bees. A room for early sleep and cheerful rising with the eastern sun, which the window faced."†

We venture to suggest to inmates of small houses the idea of the high screen, as a substitute for a dressing-room, Such a screen would not be expensive; a common drying clothes-horse would suffice, with canvas or any cotton cloth strained over it. Pictures should then be pasted or gummed all over it, and a cheap varnish passed over all. It is indeed to be wished that this forgotten decency could be restored to our homes. Making a screen, too, would be an excellent household amusement in which all might join.

* "Men, Women, and Books," vol. i. pp. 120, 121. † Lord Lytton's " Caxtoniana," vol. ii. p. 94.

We must now say a few words about bedsteads, beds, and bedding. Iron bedsteads are cheapest upon the whole, and may be either with or without furniture. They may have a half-tester and curtains, or a wooden pole may be fixed in the wall and the curtains may hang from it. The latter makes the bedstead come cheaper, and looks well, but the curtains are apt to hang rather close to the head. If the bedstead stands as French beds are intended to do, with its side to the wall, the curtains make a tent above it and hang over head and foot, but they should be put back from the latter before sleeping, that the sleeper may have plenty of air. The cheapest curtains are dimity, and really nothing looks better if they are kept clean and snowy white; about eighteen yards will make a pair of bed curtains for a three feet wide bed, with one breadth and a half in each curtain; but two breadths, which would be thirty-six yards, would be much handsomer, and are required to cover a bed five feet six inches wide. The curtains must first be bound with braid, and then a white fringe should be sewed down one side; the other joins behind the head, or by the side of the bed, and docs not require any.

This fringe might easily be made by the housemother herself, or some of the young people, by knitting in ends of cotton according to the following receipt: -

"Cast on eleven stitches; one plain row; knit two; turn over the needle and knit two together; turn, and knit two together; turn, and knit two together; put the fringe over the needle; knit two; turn over the fringe and knit one plain row back, and repeat".

Or the curtains may have a border sewn on of scarlet Turkey twill, or washing cambric of any other colour, or they may have a coloured fringe; but if the room be bright and sunny, pure white will look much the best. Cretonne and chintz are both too expensive for small means. It looks nice to loop back the curtains in the daytime to the bedpost, with either white binding, or if the trimming be coloured, with ribbon of the same hue; or if this is not liked, the curtains when they fall on each side of the head of the bed, may be raised by the servant, and their ends laid on the pillow. Of course, the bed and window curtains must be alike. Mattresses are more used than feather beds in the present day, being thought more conducive to health. The best mattress is the spring mattress. It is made of a succession of coils of stout copper wire, sometimes galvanized. These are set in a framework of stout laths, having one or two transverse bars from head to foot as the width requires. The springs are fastened to the laths, and secured to strong canvas at the top, upon which is laid a padding of wool covered with the ordinary check covering.

These mattresses cost, for a three feet wide and six long bedstead, 1l. 7s., and for one five feet wide, 2/. 10s. A thin woollen mattress is required on the top for the protection of the springs. Ordinary woollen mattresses are softer than thin horsehair ones, as well as cheaper; but a good thick old-fashioned hair mattress on a straw paillasse, or better still on a sacking, is an excellent bed.

Feather beds are expensive, except to those who pick their own poultry and can save the feathers, which should, however, be thoroughly well-baked before using. A feather bed, bolster, and pillows cost about 12l. for a full-sized bed. In purchasing one, it is well to go to a very reliable and respectable shop, as sad tricks are occasionally played in the making of feather beds. We remember how a lady once in a ready furnished house, feeling something very hard in her bed, opened a portion of the seam and found the whole wing of a goose in its original state, pieces of old woollen cloth, etc. Besides, there are different qualities of feathers. If on pressing your hand on the bed it rises up again quickly, the feathers are fresh and good. If the bed does not rise at all, they are old feathers cleaned, which are really objectionable; and here we must observe that feathers hold infection in a remarkable degree. Many families keep scarlet fever as a perfect inheritance from ignorance of this fact, and lodging-house beds by the seaside often give fever and even smallpox to the unlucky visitors. Nothing will disinfect a bed except unmaking it, having the feathers re-baked, and the tick washed, with a little of Condy's disinfecting fluid or chloride of lime in the water.

The cost of purifying feathers is 3 1/2d. per pound. Pillows are expensive things. Very good, cool, and pleasant ones, most grateful to patients in fevers, may be made by curling paper and stuffing a tick with it. For this purpose all old useless notes, circulars, etc., should be saved. The paper is cut into narrow strips, and curled round a rather blunt penknife. A little shredded flannel or cloth should be mixed with it, and the pillow should not be stuffed too hard.

Beds and mattresses may be stuffed with chaff, but once a year it must be taken out and fresh put in, instead of that used. Well dried moss answers the same purpose, and in some countries dried birch leaves are used.

If poor people would only gather the seeds of the thistle - thistledown - every year, and keep their collections in dry paper bags, they would soon have enough for the softest of down pillows, and at the same time that they were preparing this great luxury for themselves they would be diminishing the thistles for the benefit of cultivation.

Blankets

About three for each bed should be provided, small or large as required. For people who can afford them, duvets - i.e., down coverlets - are very delightful and ornamental. In some families four and even five blankets are allowed to each bed; but we give the lowest possible number which will be required. The better the quality of the blankets the fewer will be required. They are sold by the width and length, and should be selected for their weight, softness, and thickness. The price of very good "extra supers" is from 30s. to 50s. per pair. Aldershot blankets are often used for servants. They are only 6s. per pair.

Marseilla quilts are in ordinary use and maybe of several qualities. A patchwork quilt lined with soft brown paper would be found very warm in winter. Knitted quilts are pretty, but the cotton for making them comes expensive.

The servant's bedroom should be made as comfortable as possible, and she should be encouraged to keep it nice and neat. Commend her for any attempt to adorn her bedroom.