that the housemaid could do it herself yearly, or whenever an opportunity offers to re-paint the treads. Housekeepers should, in my opinion, raise a statue to Aspinall, for he certainly has removed the difficulties that lay in wait for the would-be artistic mistress of the household; for now she is rendered quite independent of the British workman, and can either paint her house herself, or give it to a man who can be trusted to apply the paint, albeit no amount of instruction will teach him to match a colour or produce anything save a hideous caricature of the paper we give him, and whose ‘heye’ is absolutely incapable of seeing what a ridiculous muddle he is making; and I, therefore, cannot too often impress upon my readers, especially on those who live far from really artistic workpeople, that if they want their houses to be really nice, they must indulge in Aspinall, and must insist on the unbroken, unpicked-out surface of paint that use of this most invaluable enamel produces most satisfactorily. CHAPTER III. NOOKS AND CORNERS. I think so very much of the appearance of our rooms depends on how we arrange our corners that I have had two large drawings made from corners in my present house, which, at the risk of appearing egotistical, I am going to write about; not because I consider them perfect--no house can really be perfect unless far more money is spent upon it than I am able to spend--but because I consider they will in some measure assist those who, like myself, are very fond of pretty and comfortable things, but are not prepared to ruin themselves in order to obtain this most desirable combination. I wrote so fully in my former book on the arrangement of sitting-rooms that I am only going to touch lightly on the orthodox papering and painting of dining-, drawing-, and morning-rooms, reserving all my new ideas for the billiard-room and library, neither of which rooms were considered likely to be required for the modest young couple starting in life, for whom I more particularly designed that special volume.