Coloured glass worked after the fashion of old windows is not enough used for door-panels, and even walls of rooms where light is wanted on the staircase. Many modern aesthetic houses follow the affectation of dark staircases quite disagreeably. I have made the ascent in red-brick mansions in such obscurity that every step had to be felt for, and ideas of spiders, beetles, and mice are inseparable from this unwholesome darkness. In such cases the builders' folly may be remedied by a wall, or part of a wall, built of translucent glass, with a pretty leading - not so translucent as to destroy privacy, of course; and more than once I have seen a landing so built around as to form a charming glass corridor, in fact a new room, more brilliant than any other, and twice as sturdy as most. Thick glass, well leaded, is stronger than lath and plaster. The sense of mystery, a striking element in Gothic charm, may be conveyed to very humdrum places by well-arranged coloured glass. There is a sense of freedom and space within glass walls which confess to something beyond, whilst softly veiling what is there, and they are more easily ventilated than others.

How many a room would be improved by a ceiling of such glass, skylight-wise, when the windows are distant and small! ana numberless pretty, decorative devices occur, in glass pictures lighted from behind at night, small illuminated niches of brilliant colour, to say nothing of conservatories and ferneries and balconies, so guarded.

Such tasteful fashions should soon banish the dull grey patch of ground-glass, starred or plain, that builders always place on the staircase, sometimes cheered up by panes - of course most garish colours - through which we may take a 'blue' or jaundiced view of sparrows and cats on the leads. But, in view of many dire failures in 'Queen Anne' suburban villas run up by speculative builders, I must add, if you cannot have first-rate stained glass, adhere to simple lozenge forms - avoid the heads of Dante, Chaucer, and Cetewayo, and all else that requires an artistic training - and above all eschew the false 'old English' mottoes which are so dismally repugnant to a scholar; such as 'Yee Sunne Flowere,' 'Yee Pusse inne Bootes,' 'Yee Gurle withe yee Umbrellah.'