Perhaps the position and the luxurious comfort of the chamber prepared for their reception--half sitting-room, half bedroom as it is--suggests to the guest more than it is meant to do, and therefore should be altered before hospitality has ceased from the face of the earth and become a mere empty mockery. I have often enough seen all sorts and descriptions of ideas for writing tables and other conveniences in a spare room, but of this I will have none; if I ask people to come and see me I want them to be with me, and not in their own rooms half the time; and letters can surely be written either in my company, or in the dining-room, should I be occupied in my own sanctum: while work of all sorts can be brought down after breakfast, when the members of the male sex have gone off to business, and there need be no reason for secluding oneself in one’s bedroom to do one’s mending. I maintain that guests staying in one’s house should be treated to what servants call company manners, and that we should make a difference for them, and try and make their visits pleasant to them, considering that they have come to us for a holiday; that leaving them to themselves, and going our own way while they go theirs, is distinctly averse to all the laws of old-fashioned and true hospitality; and that by making the spare room into a species of boudoir we appear to hint to them that we do not want them with us, except after dinner or for the afternoon drive, or really on any occasion when we can possibly do without them. I should take as nice a room as I could for my guests after my children’s convenience has been thought of--I like mine as near me as possible, and if possible on the same floor, with a schoolroom upstairs, a most invaluable possession in childish ailments, when change of room is wanted without any risks of draughts run by going downstairs--and though, of course, our proverbial bride and bridegroom will not have to think of all this for some years to come, I find I have had so many readers beside the bride for whom I meant to write this book that I cannot help being a little discursive for their sakes, the while I beg Angelina not to take the best room in the house for her guests, because she will hesitate so very much more, if she does, over dismantling the pretty room when the ‘king comes’ to his kingdom, and Miss or Master Baby arrives to rule the household with an iron rod.