door is opened only circulates in the tiny vestibule, and is shut off from the hall and house by the inner door, beyond which is a small fireplace, so small as to be scarcely visible at all, yet large enough to ensure the equal temperature which means so much in this very evil-minded climate of ours. Now, it would not be an enormous expense, either to add the vestibule, or to make it by closing the ordinary entrance at A and opening one at B, while the vestibule could be shut off from the hall by curtains, should there be light enough to do without the extra window, or by a glazed screen, should light be otherwise an impossibility. In any case the gain to health would be enormous, while the comfort is of course at once ensured which is so absolutely necessary, and yet as a rule is so little understood. If one can have curtains, and expense is a great object, it is well to obtain from Oetzmann a fretwork arch, which is made for this purpose, and which is nailed on the wall and to the ceiling, and is at once simple and effective. The rod the simplest brass one which can be procured, should go behind the arch, which should face towards the end wall, and curtains of Wallace’s diamond serge should fall from the rod; there should be two full curtains, double, if possible, and edged with ‘grip cord,’ not ball-fringe. They will be constantly moved, and ball-fringe would soon spoil, while the cord is a hardy thing and capable of standing a certain amount of pulling about. As a rule the floor of the ordinary suburban hall is made from the roughest of boards which shrink apart coyly from each other as if they were youthful maidens at their first ball, but sometimes we are fortunate enough to come across tiles. And yet I don’t know whether I should quite say fortunate! For sometimes the tiles are more frightful than I can describe, and are often cracked and irregular, while one can manage the boarded floor if one resolutely tackles it and determines that it shall not conquer one instead of being conquered itself. If one has tiles one should place two or three rugs over them, the Abingdon Carpet Company’s charming ‘Arts and Crafts’ rugs for choice, made in the proper length and width for these places; but if one has not, the boards must first be stopped, planed and smoothed and ventilated, and then a plain cork carpet from Wallace, of Curtain Road, E.C. should be put down. This should be ventilated too, by piercing holes here and there with a gimlet, else dry-rot will ensue, a thing which once in possession is very difficult to get rid of, I can assure my readers. The cork carpet must be supplemented by rugs, and in any case the vestibule should be tiled with plain self-coloured tiles to harmonise with the decorations, for here would be shed the wet waterproofs and umbrellas of the way-worn traveller, who could then proceed towards the drawing-room undeterred by the despair that seizes one when one feels at a disadvantage owing to one’s raiment. This