feeling often prevents people paying that kindest call of all, the call on a wet, dreary day, when we are dying with loneliness and boredom, and would give anything to see the friend who will not come because she would be ‘too wet for the pretty room,’ and ‘so dirty, she would really be ashamed to enter anyone’s house.’ [Illustration] Now, with the sensible short tweed skirt and tweed undergarments, which fortunate present-day damsels don unknown and unchecked, and a good plain, yet pretty waterproof, anyone is weather-tight; and if the parlour-maid pops the umbrella into the beaten iron ring for that purpose placed behind the front door, and hangs the waterproof up in Wallace’s handy P. T. C. wardrobe in another corner; and if the boots are carefully wiped on the mat placed in the sunken place in front of the door, the visitor enters the room spotless and as dry as if she had just emerged from her own house or from Lady Gorgeous Midas’s brand new brougham. The tiled floor should have upon it a pretty thick rug lined with American leather: one can be bought for about 8s. 9d. at Treloar’s: an outlay that no one need mind, but that ensures once more a certain amount of comfort. The front door should, of course, never be grained, and it ought in these days to be quite unnecessary for me even to hint at such a thing. But mighty is the ‘local decorator,’ beloved of the suburbs, and his counsels will undoubtedly prevail, unless we put down our foot very firmly indeed, and keep it resolutely in that special attitude. He will ‘grain’ the door if he can until doomsday, I am convinced, but my readers must be firm and dignified, and above all must they give their instructions in writing, and keep a duplicate signed by the ‘decorator’ (save the mark!), else will they find he has gone his own sweet way after all, and they have no redress whatever. It is an axiom that whatever colour is chosen for the hall that colour alone shall be on the front door, but it may be in a darker shade, while the vestibule can often be treated differently to the hall itself, though of course it should lead up to and harmonise with it. Let me describe what I mean. The special vestibule I am thinking of has a couple of small, diamond-paned windows, one at the end, one opposite the front door, and below this latter is a wide panel painted with a tiger-lily, and then a wide wooden seat which lifts up and holds carriage rugs, and on which anyone could sit did he or she come with a message or a note and require to wait an answer. Both windows have wide ledges on which stand pots holding palms or aspidistras, and all the paint on the inside of the front door and on the vestibule side of the glass screen-doors included, is a special, beautiful soft grey-blue shade. The panelled walls are the same colour; the curtains are soft yellow silk, and the ceiling proper is yellow and cream. On the floor are dull blue tiles and a Scinde rug,