Page:Bedroom and Boudoir.djvu/57

42 more satisfactory. If again your bower is a modern Frenchified concern, then screen off its angles by écrans of gay tapestry or embroidered folding leaves, or paper-covered screens of delicate tints with sprays of trailing blossom, and here and there a bright-winged bird or butterfly. Designs for all these varieties of screens can be obtained in great perfection at the Royal School of Art Needlework. But for a simple modern English bedroom, snug as a bird's nest, and bright and fresh as a summer morning I should choose screens of slender wooden rails with fluted curtains of muslin and lace cunningly hung thereon. Only it must be remembered that these entail constant change, and require to be always exquisitely fresh and clean.

It often happens that another spare bed is wanted on an emergency, and it is a great point in designing couches for a nondescript room, a room which is some one person's peculiar private property, whether called a den or a study, a smoking-room or a boudoir, that the said couch should be able "a double debt to pay" on a pinch. I have lately seen two such resting-places which were both convenient and comfortable. The first was a long, low settee of cane, with a thin mattress over its seat, and a thicker one, doubled in two, forming a luxurious back against the wall