Immediately under the tap stands a large bowl of Delft, or other ware sufficiently strong for daily use, and yet ornamental or picturesque enough to remain always in the dining-room. Terra-cotta is a good material for this purpose, as the colour is always decorative to a room. One might have a bowl of very elegant design made at the Watcombe terra-cotta works. Better still, in the case of its being required to be movable, would be a wooden bowl of the Norwegian carved work manufactured by peasant artists of Thelemarken, under the direction of M. de Coninck, of Christiania. Some one of Minton's vases or _jardinières_ would answer the purpose very well; but unless it had a plug and a pipe for letting off the water, like many washstands have, it would be heavy to lift with water in it. But a bowl with these fittings, placed on a fixed stand near the fire-place, would be well worth while taking some trouble to procure for the dining-room. It would be quite as ornamental, and no more expensive, than the china flower-pots on unsteady pedestals which are so universally popular; indeed, it might balance one of these on the window-side of the fire-place, if it were thought proper. A piece of oilcloth might be spread under the pedestal, if it does not stand on the varnished floor. From the sideboard-drawer will be taken a neatly folded tea-cloth, ornamented most probably with open work at each end, or adorned with colour in the style of the Russian household linen in the collection of the Duchess of Edinburgh, and the lady will proceed to rinse and wipe the breakfast cups and saucers, together with the teaspoons, milk-jug, and the cleaner plates, and will then lay the plates that have grease upon them to soak in the hot water, to which some additional hot water has been added. Before taking out the plates, the china which has been used at breakfast should be neatly arranged on, or in, the sideboard. This saves the trouble of carrying about trays of crockery, and the consequent breakage. I will describe the china cabinet as I go more particularly into the details of the dining-room. The remaining plates may now be wiped, and the _etceteras_ replaced, the cloth brushed, neatly folded, and laid in a drawer with the table napkins, and the fryingpan cleansed by relighting the spirit-lamp for a minute while some hot water bubbles in it to clean it; the towel itself taken away to dry, and the tea-leaves, and a small basin of eggshells and scraps carried into the kitchen; the raw eggshells to be used to wash decanters and glass, and the tea-leaves reserved for dusting purposes. The windows are opened and the gas fire turned out, and this important ceremonial of the day is at an end.