Family portraits, if good, are not out of place in the dining room; but poor, old photographs in bungling, black walnut frames should be preserved in the private apartments of those who value them. They are never decorative; nor are pictures popularly known as dining room pictures much more pleasing. The effigy of a silver salver of leaden hue loaded with fruits of all climes, with a decanter of wine and a half empty glass, of fishes hanging by their gills, or dead ducks, each from one web-footed leg, is not nearly so attractive as a good portrait, landscape, _genre_ picture or flower painting, however good practice the manufacture of such studies may be in the art schools. I know a dining room where, outrivaling some amateurish fruit painting, an engraving after Rosa Bonheur of a shepherdess with her sheep has been a daily delight for years, and another where the only picture space in the room, that directly over the mantel shelf (the walls being darkly paneled), is filled with a water color copy of Sir Joshua’s “Angel Choir” that seems fairly to light and hallow the air around it, like the glories round the heads of saints. An over-mantel is appropriate in the dining room if anywhere, as it affords shelf room for choice china or glass that ought to be seen. A little ingenuity can go a great way in dressing up a commonplace shelf so that it shall have dignity and importance. I have known one to have a very aristocratic air which was only an adaptation of part of a four-post bedstead, graceful, slender posts standing on either side of the fireplace, built up with shelves of varying width and length. If books in every room are a prime necessity, as our model home-maker assures us, then there should be at least one book-shelf in each room. “Pray what is that book-shelf for?” asks the visitor while seated at the dinner table in “The Poet’s House,” which Mr. Scudder has described for us. “Books of reference,” said Stillwell, promptly. “It’s extraordinary how many little questions come up for discussion at the table, questions of dates, of names, of quotations. So I keep a dictionary, a book of dates, a brief biographical dictionary, a dictionary of poetical quotations, and one or two other such books at hand. It is the sideboard to our mental feast. We don’t keep everything we possibly need on the table itself.” And others beside poets would find such a shelf of great convenience.