The parlour, the principal room of the house, is always kept tidy. It has an alcove, six feet long by three deep, consisting of a dais, a few inches high, of plain hard wood, which will bear polishing, though a thin matting is sometimes put over it. Not unfrequently, another piece of wood, generally square, forms the outer edge so that the thickness of the floor of the alcove can be concealed. The dais has a special ceiling of its own, or a bit of a wall, of plaster or wood, coming down over it a foot or more from the ceiling. On the dais is set a vase of porcelain or metal, bottle-shaped or flat, in which branches of a tree or shrubs in flower are put in, and on the wall is hung a _kakemono_, or scroll of picture or writing. These two constitute the main ornament of the room. New flowers are put in every few days and the _kakemono_ is changed from time to time. This is the peculiarity of the _kakemono_ as a piece of house decoration. We do not exhibit all our treasures in _kakemono_ at the same time, but hang them one, two, or three at a time according to the size of the alcove and the _kakemono_ themselves, so that the visitor calling at different seasons may delight his eyes with the sight of fresh pictures or writings each time he calls. The inmates, too, do not grow weary with gazing at the same pictures day after day, but enjoy the variety the seasons offer. To the Japanese it is a more artistic and pleasurable method of displaying his treasures than keeping them all, as it were, on permanent exhibition. The flowers, too, in the vases are arranged in an artistic style; their arrangement is an art which boasts many schools and professors and is considered an indispensable branch of a girl’s education. They are not thrown haphazard in a bundle into a vase and expected to give pleasure merely by the profusion of colours and forms, It may be a single stem or half a dozen with the flowers ranged in relation to one another after fixed canons of the art.