Now, I want you to look just for a moment at the picture I have had drawn here of an empty nursery and see how admirably it is adapted for the purpose, and how cruel it would be to sweep away all these corners and shelves. You will notice how the cupboard fills in the recess between the fire and the wall, and you will see how a doll’s-house should be arranged, and then, I am sure, you will think twice about weeding out all this, and doing away with things that may give pleasure to future generations, particularly when we must all number among our acquaintances people with children, who come to tea, and will enjoy their tea twice as much if the children can be relegated to old nurse and the room where all is prepared for the small guests, who will for the moment take the place of those who are still children to us, albeit they are as old as we were when we began housekeeping ourselves, and set up a nursery with the pride and consequence inseparable from that most important step; while we can look hopefully forward to other small visitors who will be delighted to play with ‘mother’s old toys,’ and to hear things about that mother’s childhood, which can only be told them by an authority on the subject. The nursery I have had sketched here is, of course, a much more expensive and elaborate room than could be suggested to folks with small incomes, but will serve as an example, I hope even in little houses, although, as those were amply catered for in my first book, I do not feel so bound to consider them as I did then. I should always have a real dado in any nursery. The one used here is of Indian matting, which is as neat and clean after ten years’ use as it was the day it was put up. By the way, a dado should be secured at the top with rather a heavier rail than the one illustrated, and this should be screwed on, not nailed. The screws can be removed at any moment, and the dado taken down. In the case of a cretonne dado this could be washed at any moment, while stuff or matting could be brushed or shaken; but I have taken down matting after ten years on a wall, which was sized before the matting was put up, and have never found the smallest dirt behind it, while the wall remained absolutely intact for that space of time, and, indeed, is as good as new now, after fifteen years’ wear, at least, I hear it is; unfortunately we have moved twice since then, and I cannot possibly inspect the matting to verify this statement for myself as I should like to do; but ten years is a long time, and, in these roving days of ours, when all too rarely do houses descend from father to son, is quite space enough for most of us. Above the matting--which should be the kind sold by Treloar, in Ludgate Circus, for 35_s._ the roll of 40 yards--can be put any pretty blue paper. Pither’s new blue bay-tree paper, at 1_s._ 6_d._, is charming, and is of a colour that [Illustration: FIG. 15.--An Empty Nursery.]