The frames of the pictures and mirrors must next be attended to. The frames should be lightly dusted, for the flowers or other projecting parts, being generally made of plaster, are easily broken, and even when in carved wood the edges and corners may be chipped off and disfigured; a feather-brush should therefore be used for this purpose; the glass of both mirrors and pictures should be washed over with a woollen cloth and pure cold water, dried with a soft clean linen cloth, and polished with a silk handkerchief, which should be kept for the purpose; but if the glass be either dimmed by fly marks or smoke, it may be necessary to wash it over with spirits, then dust it over with powder-blue in a small muslin bag, rub it up with a soft linen cloth, and finally polish it with a silk handkerchief. If there are portraits in the room not glazed, which appear to require cleaning, they might be gently washed over with cold water without being injured, but on no account touched with soap; it is however safer merely to dust them, and even this should be with a feather-brush, and very lightly done; it is impossible to take too great care of such precious possessions; an injury given to a valuable portrait or painting no money can repair. Should much dust have fallen from the pictures and mirrors, &c., &c., it may be necessary to sprinkle with tea-leaves and sweep round the sides of the room very lightly before laying down the carpet, or else remove the dust by drawing a coarse damp cloth round the room as they do in Germany; this method of sweeping answers extremely well when there is not a great deal of dust to be removed, and is much in favour of keeping the furniture clean.[2] If the carpet is made so that it can be turned each time that it is laid down, then care should be taken that the same part does not always lie before the door, so as to be worn out before the rest, for a shabby piece of carpet, on entering a room, immediately strikes the eye; but if the carpet is cut to fit into recesses, this cannot be avoided. As soon as the carpet has been put down quite even on the floor, and tightly stretched and nailed (which is generally done by the man who has the charge of beating it), the housemaid, with a clean coarse cloth, should rub down each breadth, taking care to turn to different parts of the cloth as they get soiled. Many people approve of rubbing it over in this way with a damp flannel, but the practice is not a good one; it has the effect of brightening for the moment, but gives it afterwards a duller and more soiled look; a greater degree of dampness than that produced by the use of tea-leaves when brushing the carpet is injurious. When a carpet is much soiled, by having been used for years, it may be made to look perfectly clean, and even the colours greatly restored again, by being washed with a mixture of boiled soap and ox-gall, but in a very short time it will look worse than before; even if