And now to turn to the question of how to make the kitchen a little pleasanter than it is at present, especially in those houses where there is no servants’ hall. The best of cooks only succeeds in making her room look spotlessly clean and absolutely uninteresting; there is nothing pretty about it, and there is, as a rule, nothing save the ordinary hard Windsor chair on which to sit. This is quite right and what it should be; but besides that there could be an easier chair for the tired servant, who presumably can get quite as fatigued as we can, and for whom we could provide a low-backed chair with cushions (easily taken out and washed) once we have come to the conclusion that she is [Illustration: FIG. 17.--An Ideal Kitchen.] likely to stay with us and that she is to be trusted not to make hay with it. Our artist has made a sketch of ‘an ideal kitchen’ from Mr. Faulkner Armitage’s designs, which I hope will some day be the kitchen of the future. Here the dresser and mantel-piece arrangement provide for all the necessary pots and pans, while the furniture is as simple as it is pretty, and in consequence has an artistic effect which is really charming. This furniture is stained malachite green or russet brown, whichever is preferred; with the green furniture, the tiled paper on the wall, which is much nicer to live with than mere colour-wash and is quite as clean, as it can be wiped over with a damp duster quite easily, should be red and white, and the paint a dark shade of red; with the brown, the paper should be blue and white, and the paint a good blue, and all along the wall on the floor should be a two-inch band of wood; this keeps the chairs away from the wall; but if the base of the wall becomes shabby a dado of oilcloth can always be added with a real dado rail; this keeps a wall tidy for years, and can always be washed, and finally painted over should the pattern crack or become in any measure worn and untidy. The ordinary boarded kitchen should be covered entirely with a good, well-seasoned linoleum, and a square of carpet lined with a thin American cloth should be given to the cook to place down on Sundays, or after the worst of the work is over; this gives a finished and furnished look to the room, and adds a great deal to the comfort of the maids. A stone floor should be painted with Hoskyn’s Ben Trovato red, and some rugs laid down at all times, as this is very bad to stand upon. I had linoleum laid all over the only stone floor I ever possessed, and that answered excellently; it was put down so that it adhered to the stone in some manner, and lasted a very great many years in excellent condition; but should anyone object to this I can also recommend a square of Treloar’s cocoa-nut matting, bound all round with a wide binding; but this should be rolled back for cooking, as grease adheres to it dreadfully and soon makes it shabby.