Sumptuous furniture and splendid apparel are closely wedded together, and cannot be separated with success. If I lived among Louis Quinze furniture I should often see in the room with me ghosts of gallant courtiers, dressed in long silk coats, embellished with gold braid, and vests of rainbow hue, with cravats and ruffs of billowy lace, carrying at their hips a long rapier, and toying with a bejewelled snuff-box as they moved noiselessly with an elegant devil-may-care swagger, mixing with superbly decorated marqueterie cabinets and tables and bronze statuettes and Sèvres china _bleu du roi_; and shadowy ladies of high degree would be there, wearing capacious and flowery dresses and powdered hair, sitting in the chequered light of evening on seats richly upholstered in pale rose Gobelin tapestry, smiling dreamily on the exquisites of the old régime--all of them fatally gifted mortals with manners polished as the hard, shining surface of the parquet floor they gaily tread: the whole scene a vision glorious, composing an harmonious blend of colour, grace, and beauty. Modern men lounging in tweed Norfolk jackets, or dressed sombre in black swallow-tail coats, with a cigarette lolling on their lips, and ladies tailored into close-fitting costumes of neutral tints, however beautiful in themselves, would be completely out of the picture. A peculiar reason why old furniture is coveted by many people is because it is fashionable and scarce. The quantity that remains in the country, drawn from the homes of our easy-going port-wine-drinking Georgian forefathers, is decreasing, and buyers are increasing, so competition runs riot for really good pieces. There is plenty of worthless old furniture for sale, as there are worthless "Old Masters" asking for buyers. Americans are the greedy collectors who raid the market with their unlimited dollars and pay sensational prices for the prize pieces to adorn their town houses in New York or Chicago.