_The_ great advantage to me in employing our own man is that we buy our own wall-papers &c. just wherever we like, and can, moreover, obtain a large discount on them if we pay cash, and insinuate that we expect the aforesaid discount as a matter of course. Then we can start on our shopping and to enjoy ourselves, though I question much if shopping be quite as charming an occupation as one expects it to be. Certainly, unless one starts with a clear conception of one’s needs, a long day’s shopping can result in nothing save great confusion of ideas, and a fearful consciousness that one has bought the very things one ought not to have purchased, and entirely forgotten the very articles of which we were most in want. To avoid this disagreeable termination to our day, we must never start in a hurry, never be obliged to hasten over our purchases; and once our minds are made up on the subject of colours, we must not allow a ‘sweetly pretty’ pattern or beautiful hue to tempt us. Having made up our minds what we want, let us buy that, and nothing else. Therefore, before going out really to purchase, we must settle definitely what are our requirements; and after really making the acquaintance of our house, the next thing to do is to find out what pretty things can be bought, at which shops, and at the most reasonable rate; and this is only to be done by a painstaking inspection of what the different establishments have to offer us, and by not disdaining to look in at shop windows, keeping both ears and eyes open, and using our senses and, if possible, other people’s experiences, as much as we can. This is a long and tedious process, but one worth going through, if we really want our house to be a home, and the experience we purchase with our furniture will go a long way towards helping us to solve the problem set before so many of us: how to live pleasantly on small means. One axiom we can undoubtedly lay to heart and remember, and that is that no one establishment should be resorted to for everything. Long experience teaches me that each shop has its specialties; it may supply everything from beds to food, from saucepans to grand pianos, still there is always some one thing that another shop has better and cheaper, and it is as well to find this out before we start away to buy our furniture, for I have often been made very angry by seeing exactly the same thing I gave 5_s._ for in one shop sold at 2_s._ 6_d._ in a less fashionable but equally accessible neighbourhood, while nothing varies as much as the price of wall-papers. I have known the self-same paper sold at 2_s._ 6_d._, 3_s._ 6_d._, and 4_s._ a piece by three different firms, all within a stone’s throw of each other; and, naturally, patterns alter from year to year, and we can scarcely ever match a paper unless we purchase one designed by some well-known designer, such as Morris, Jeffreys, Shufferey, Collinson and Lock, and Mr. E. Pither, of Mortimer