A bow-window, the orthodox suburban villa bow-window, is, I own, a very difficult subject to treat, but I have circumvented even that by an arrangement of curtains on rods managed as described above, and in the first-named window have two narrow white curtains meeting at the top of the window, and gradually sloping away until they are about five inches apart at the bottom; the wider centre sash is treated in the same manner with wider curtains, the plain edge of which meets the edge of the curtain that fits the narrow sash on both sides of the broader window; for the usual bow is made of a flat sash in the middle, between two narrow sashes that bow slightly; the muslin is ‘taut’, as sailors would say, and is always tidy, and by using these narrow _very_ cheap rods all expensive fitted and formed poles and valances are done away with, and a most expensive and vexatious item in our expenditure completely swept off our schedule of payments to be made. The muslin curtains neatly up, a thicker rod can be fixed in three portions, each portion separate and distinct, for the heavier curtains. Those in any dining-room can be made of several materials. Shoolbred had a beautiful gold figured damask, double width, at 4_s._ 9_d._, which looks like silk, though naturally it is nothing of the kind; this drapes beautifully and looks charming, as it falls into folds and never fades; it can be edged with a ball fringe to match, which adds a good deal to the expense, but looks better than anything else, or else by a frill, but this is a little heavy, as the material is thick. This material can be had in a beautiful pale blue and a good terra-cotta as well as in the yellow, but I have no experience of the wear of the two former colours, and therefore cannot tell whether they last as well and as satisfactorily as the yellow does. To make the window look really nice, you require one breadth hung down straight at the end of the first slip of window against the wall, edged all round the sides and bottom with ball fringe or the frill; then another breadth on the other side of the slip to pull halfway across the wider window to meet a third curtain hanging straight in the middle of the other division, and being met in its turn by a fourth, which, when undrawn, should hang straight against the wall in the same way that curtain number one does. The artistic serges sold by Colbourne & Co., 82 Regent Street, at 1_s._ 11½_d._ a yard, and Stephen’s Sicilienne damasks at 7_s._ 9_d._ a yard, are excellent curtain materials also, as are the stamped jutes and corduroy serges sold for this purpose by Mr. Smee.