Our present sanitary ideas will tolerate no longer curtains on beds, or heavy carpets on the floors of sleeping apartments. Both foster dust, and dust conceals the germs of disease. That carpets are sometimes made a too convenient receptacle for dust is evident from the answer that was once given by a housemaid. Professing to have become converted to religion, she was asked for a proof of the happy change, and thus replied: "Now," she said, "I sweep _under_ the mats." For bedrooms there should be narrow, separate, tight-woven strips of carpet around the bed and in front of furniture only. These are easy to shake, and in every sense in harmony with the simplicity and cleanliness which, if health is to be preserved, must pervade the bedroom. The more air it contains the better, and hence everything superfluous should be banished from it. But we shall not specify the different things which, in our opinion, should, or should not, be found in the several rooms of a house, for after all it is the arrangement of furniture rather than the furniture itself that makes the difference. If the question be asked, Is it better to pick up furniture at auctions or to buy it in shops? we reply, Avoid auctions. Things are varnished up to the eye, and it is seldom possible to examine them. So you generally find on returning home from a sale that your purchases are by no means what they seemed. As regards the expense of furnishing a small house such as young housekeepers of the middle class usually hire when first they settle down in life, this of course varies with circumstances, but even one hundred pounds ought nearly to suffice. To estimate the cost rightly, one should know the tastes of the people concerned, their social position, the size of their house, and the style of the locality in which they propose to live. Very good furniture can sometimes be obtained secondhand, but one must be on their guard against "bargains" that are worthless. There are certain articles, such as lamps, beds, and bedding, that should as a general rule be purchased new. People are generally in too great haste when furnishing. They should be prudent, deliberate, and wait with their eyes open until they see the sort of things that will suit them. They should buy the most instantly necessary articles first with ready money, and add to these as they can afford it to carry out ideas formed by observation. They should buy what can be easily replaced after legitimate wear and tear, what their servants can properly attend to, and what will save labour and time. CHAPTER XIII. MARRIED PEOPLE'S MONEY. "Never treat money affairs with levity--money is character."--_Sir E. Bulwer Lytton._