If there are proper recesses by the fireplaces these should at once be utilised for cupboards, flush to the wall, so that no little heads can be banged against those cruel corners. These cupboards are most useful. The lower shelves can be used for rubbish--the delicious rubbish that is so much nicer than expensive toys; and the upper shelves can be used for the work in hand and better toys, kept for Sundays and holidays and those grand occasions when nursery company comes, and visitors may arrive who have no imaginativeness, or only see old bits of wood once sacred to cotton, shankless buttons, fir-cones, and scraps of silk and paper, where other bolder folk perceive strings of diamonds and pearls, and libraries of fairies, and wardrobes sacred to unknown but much-beloved friends; whose houses are the fir-cones, and who dress themselves magnificently in sweepings begged from the maid, or even from that proud lady, the dressmaker, whose occasional visits, with her ‘own machine,’ are something to look forward to by any small mother who has an army of dolls, and very little indeed to clothe them in. Who amongst us cannot remember the intense bliss of our nursery cupboard, the delicious joy of having one place all our own, where we could hoard unchecked those thousand and one trifles that no drawing-room could be expected to give house-room to--where even nurse did not interfere, because our rubbish (rubbish, indeed!) kept us so delightfully quiet? Ay, and who amongst us who does recollect this can grudge a day nursery to even one child who requires it--all the more because it is a solitary little girl, and can make its own companions out of trifles, when otherwise its mother would be making it grown-up before its time, by never leaving it alone for a moment to those devices and play that keep it a child, and don’t allow it to grow up an ‘old person’ almost before it can stand steadily on its fat legs? Given the blessed refuge of a nursery, with its appealing cupboard, and very little other furniture is required. A nice solid round table, with (please don’t faint, all ye æsthetic folk) oilcloth sewn strongly over it as a cover, because then no tablecloth is needed, save at meals, and there are no draperies to be caught hold of; and because this rubs clean every morning, because nothing stains it, and even milk can be washed off; a comfortable deep chair for nurse, low enough for her to hold baby comfortably and easily; a chair for each child, and one for company; and a delightful sofa, and nothing more is really required.