Lucky indeed is that suburban householder who finds himself the proud possessor of one or more dressing-rooms beside the orthodox bathroom, which, thanks to the march of the ages, is now to be found in the quite small houses which are only meant for such a humble individual as the ordinary city clerk. As a rule, there will be a dressing-room leading out of the ‘best’ bedroom, and if this need not be used as described in the chapter on nurseries, it were well to contemplate it and consider carefully if it cannot serve the purpose of a small private retreat for the house-mistress, should the ‘third room’ have to be devoted to the maids, or to the master, or even to schoolroom purposes. For it is absolutely necessary that she should have such a retreat; and if the bathroom be available for the husband as indeed it should always be in a little house, where visitors are the exception and not the rule, there can be no reason why the dressing-room should not be so arranged that the wife could use it in the daytime, ay, and even see her more intimate friends there, if she cares to do so. I have twice had houses which have had fireless dressing-rooms, and these were, of course, very difficult to deal with, even when the rooms were used as dressing-rooms only, and I do not quite know what I should have done had I not had other rooms available for myself. Yet as both dressing-rooms were on the outside of the house, fire-places or stoves could have been placed there, and, of course, ought to have been erected at once. But the bathroom in each case was used for a dressing-room, and the hot water always kept at a proper state of warmth even in the coldest weather; though in both cases fire-places were available had it been necessary to have greater heat. But when frost appeared we were always ready for it; we kept gas and fires burning whenever pipes were likely to freeze, and as all the outside pipes were properly protected, I have never had a pipe burst myself and have never experienced in my own person the miseries I have had so graphically described to me by sufferers from this most disagreeable consequence of carelessness and the improper manner in which pipes are fixed and the supply pipes managed by the ordinary water company.