Our English sisters set us a good example in this respect. Their drawing rooms are made comfortable, with easy chairs strong enough to hold a man’s weight, with tables conveniently placed, with books here and an embroidery frame there, and a lady’s work basket near at hand, not at all too fine for daily use. I have seen an American lady hustle her work basket out of the room when the door-bell rang, hide her thimble in her pocket, and assume an air of elegant idleness and leisure, as if she were ashamed to be caught needle in hand. Her English sister, better bred, would lay down her work to welcome her guest, and resume it again, as a matter of course, to set her visitor at ease. A marble-topped center table is not essential to a drawing room; nor are a photograph album and illustrated books essential ornaments of the center table. The morning papers, the last number of _The Century_, and a readable book are more attractive ornaments than the most costly album, though filled with pictures of all the celebrities you have ever seen. I would have a book case, at least a book-shelf, in every room in the house—I have three in my hall, even—and the reception room surely is no exception to the rule. Let there be books at hand for the entertainment of guests, and let there be every facility possible for rendering the room light enough to read or to sew. In a large room there should be more than one table, and student lamps in abundance where there is no gas. Where gas is burned there should still be lamps or drop-lights on the tables. Parsimony in lamp-light is as bad as parsimony in fuel or in bedding, and results in serious injury to the eyes. As to the matter of heating our houses, there have been so many funny things done in the attempt to affect a compromise between the fire place and the furnace that almost every house has in it something incongruous in this line. The old-fashioned fireplace for burning wood was healthful and artistic, but it often smoked, and in the depth of winter seldom gave out sufficient heat. The grate in which anthracite coal is burned, or soft coal, was good, but the care of the coal fire, though not so continuous as of the wood, was still a heavy burden. There is a price to pay for every comfort, and we can not rightly enjoy the comfort without paying its full price. But that seemed a hard doctrine, and so the inventors went to work. They gave up that abomination, the air-tight stove, which rose in grim blackness an offense to the eye, and parched all the air for us before we had breathed it in. Then the furnace came in and there was an era of real rejoicing. Fireplaces were walled up and holes cut in all the floors, but with hot air furnaces there were new complications. Water pans which should be replenished daily were as often as not left empty, and the air was no better to breathe than that baked dry by an air-tight stove, and the fire, as a rule, required a man’s hand. Beside,