There are about three different styles of windows in suburban residences, and these are the bow, the ordinary sash, and what I call the ‘_Randolph Caldecott_’ window; and all these can be most successfully treated without using the abominable and expensive roller blind to which Britons are so deeply, so almost irrevocably attached. We have less sunshine than almost any other nation under heaven, yet we of all people cling to the useless and truly ugly window blind with a devotion worthy of a nobler cause. Still I have hopes that constant preaching may do something, and that in time we may realise the fact that nothing but outside blinds are of the smallest use in really hot weather, and that curtains are meant to draw, and that should they fail to be anything save melancholy wisps at the end of an expanse of glass, they are not only useless but absolutely ridiculous in the eyes of any artistic person. The ordinary bow window, if small has been so often written about that I really cannot think it necessary to dwell upon it again; and is it not illustrated not only in _From Kitchen to Garret_, now a respectable classic nine years old, but in Wallace’s catalogue, and Smee & Cobay’s, and doubtless in others too? But a larger one has not been illustrated that I know of, and while the fundamental lines to go on should be those of the small window, the material curtains should be long, there should be no window-seat in the dining-room--unless there are a couple of windows and no third sitting-room--and the muslin curtains, which are fixed on the window frames and take the place of blinds, should be supplemented by four long muslin curtains, frilled each side, to go under the material curtains in the centre of the bow, and two, frilled one side only, to go one each side at the end of the bow. These curtains should be crossed at the top, and held back high up with wide frilled bands of muslin similar to that used for the curtains. As a rule H. Gorringe’s spotted muslin sold ready frilled is the best material for this purpose, but I am very fond of Wallace’s ‘Guipure vitrage’ for the curtains on the window. If this be used, the long curtains should be of Guipure too, taking care to have a double edge to the centre curtains, and a single one to those which go at the end of the bow. The ordinary sash window, if short, should be treated like the centre window of the small bow window, but if it reaches from floor to ceiling it should have the double set of muslin curtains which I have just been writing about. Then we have only the Caldecott windows to [Illustration]