This insures warmth, and trebles the chances of wear. Secondly, a really good Oriental carpet with a good deal of white in it. Mr. Smee has a charming one, that harmonises beautifully with blue, and that costs about 10_l._ for rather a small room. Thirdly, one could have a nice matting (putting this down over the brown paper) at about 1_s._ 6_d._ to 2_s._ a yard, with good rugs scattered about. These are expensive items, and would cost 8_l._ or 9_l._ to provide enough, and of the right sort; but the wear of really good rugs is marvellous. I have two large ones I bought at Treloar’s nearly ten years ago; they are in the dining-room, where there is a great deal of wear and tear, and they are as good now in appearance as the day I bought them, but I think they cost me a little over 2_l._ 10_s._ each. [1] Since writing the above I have found my blue carpet at Messrs. Colbourne’s, 82 Regent Street, where it can always be procured. Of course, if we spend on our carpets we must be prepared to save elsewhere; our curtains need not cost us much. They can be either yellow and white, or blue and white Liberty cretonne, made to the height of the dado rail, just to draw along the windows from top to bottom to exclude light and to hide the room from outsiders when it is lighted up, thus saving the great and useless expense of blinds, and they can be lined with some cheap material, or made double, and then, white ones being fixed as described later on, last a long time without washing, and can be either made of figured Madras, with a good deal of colour in it, at 4_s._ 6_d._ a yard, double width, or of fine muslin and guipure, which washes beautifully--a quality I have never discovered in the many Madras muslins that I have bought, because I could not resist their decorative qualities, though I was angry at my own weakness all the time. Naturally I can lay down no really hard-and-fast lines for decorating a drawing-room, for so much depends on the style and shape of the chamber; and what I said of the morning-room applies here equally well. Still, a yellow and white room, made by using Pither’s yellow and white ‘berry’ paper, with a dado of Collinson and Lock’s ‘47’ cretonne, with ivory paint, and yellow and white ceiling paper, and a blue carpet, makes a charming room; while one of the flowery, expensive papers, with a cretonne dado, is also safe to be charming too. In this case pink must be used in the ceiling, and the carpet should be either Maple’s ‘golden pine’ or a very carefully chosen carpet in shades of sage-green.