Therefore, if Edwin have a really nice wardrobe, a chair, and a dressing-table and washing-stand combined, as described previously, it is really all he wants, unless, of course, the room be a good size, when the walls can be decorated at will. Equally, of course, the wall-paper and the dado should match the bedroom, and here more than anywhere else should be the substantial dado of either cretonne or matting, as here the walls get mysterious knocks and indentations even more than they do in the passages and bedrooms. If the bath has to be taken in the dressing-room--and sometimes even now old houses have not bath-rooms--the bath should stand on a large square of oilcloth, covered by a ‘bath blanket.’ This should be taken up and dried, and the oilcloth wiped carefully, as soon as the bath is emptied, or both will soon rot and be spoiled. Very nice ‘bath blankets’ are made by taking the old-gold and dark brown blankets one buys of Mansergh and Sons, Lancaster, from 3_s._ to 11_s._ 6_d._ a pair, according to size, though those at 7_s._ a pair are the best size. A piece should be cut from one end to make the blanket square; and one of Francis’s conventional designs should be ironed off in each corner, which is then worked over in either outline or a thick ‘rope’ or twisted chain-stitch, in double crewels, in about two or three colours. For instance, old gold looks well with the work in two shades of brown crewels, with a dash of dull blue; the brown blankets with golden crewels with, perhaps, a dash of red. But as it is rather difficult to get the design clearly on the rough, fuzzy blanket, an easier style is in cross-stitch. The canvas must be very coarse, and tacked to the blanket. An edging, as well as corners, looks nice, and the canvas threads must be pulled out afterwards. I think a big cross-stitch, monogram, or cypher looks nice. The edges of the blanket can be either button-holed over or hemmed with a line of cross-stitch defining the hem. These blankets are a great ornament to a bath or dressing-room, and are invaluable in any room where the bath must be taken in the room itself. CHAPTER XIII. SPARE ROOMS. I think it is a most excellent plan to have the bedrooms on one floor of a house furnished as much as possible alike; that is to say, if economy be an object, and also if, as in several houses I know, the rooms open out either on a square landing or into a corridor that leads past them all. Of course, the papers need not be alike, neither need they all have cretonne dados; but the paint should harmonise, and so should the wall-coverings, while the curtains and carpets should be identically the same; as if one have to move, or the cretonnes shrink in the wash, and the carpets become worn in patches, one thing can be made to supplement the other, and so a large outlay to replace old things--always the most worrying kind of outlay, I think--is avoided.