Page:Every Woman's Encyclopedia Volume 1.djvu/487

 hangings, and the coverings of the chairs seem mere accessories to the lilies and the blue walls. And if I seem to insist unduly on this colour in decoration, it is because I find that it soothes, rests one to an extra- ordinary degree. I believe that it will come more and more into fashion. A riverside drawing-room lingers in my mind, but then the outlook, and the shape and position of the windows had much to say to its charm. On either side of an old, richly carved, gilt glass reaching to the ceiling, and resting on a console table holding old china, were two smallish windows high up ; these had short, tied-back curtains of chintz, with much green in it, and a vivid splash of cherry colour. The Chintz Drawing" room These curtains were repeated — six pairs — in a very large bay-window looking out on a lawn, and a dainty Louis Quatorze writing- table and chair sufficiently furnished the recess. The rest of the room consisted mainly of deep easy-chairs and couches, flounced to the ground with chintz, and lovely old "bits" of furniture sparingly arranged so that none of their beauties were lost. The mantelpiece, covered with chintz, had the fellow-glass to the one between the windows ; and I confess to a tenderness for those rich gilt frames. In this instance they gave a note of sumptuousness to the room that in no way discounted the clean chintz freshness, in which one seemed to catch the very scent of the flowers that bloomed on every side. 463 WOMAN'S HOME In every drawhig-room I look round for a work-basket of some sort, perferably one of those work-tables that our grandmothers loved, with its silk bag — of the right colour — below, containing the bit of work to take up at odd times. Books are all very well, but you are all the while at the back of what you are reading. When you sew you watch the stitches, and the burden of self recedes. I have always thought that it is to their love and steady practice of needlework that the women of the middle-classes owe their content and " poise," their sane way of taking life, and no woman who has once tried it as a panacea against mental pain is likely to abandon it. A very simple and elegant receptacle for work can be made by having three strong circular wires fixed to what is really a small pedestal, with a round of wood at the top, and a larger one at the bottom, both to be covered with silk of the desired colour, the top edged with fringe, and three deep pockets of silk frilled on to the wires, drawn in below something in the shape of a fool's cap. It is a reminder to you when a fit of worry is toward, that a remedy is at hand. Some Beautiful Drawing-rooms But there are drawing-rooms and drawing- rooms, some so splendid that chintz would be out of place. I well remember one of which the walls were apparently of brocade — a rich, glorious red — the white ceiling heavily barred with oak beams, and tall cabinets of fragile china either side of satin-hung windows, that looked out on woods and a Chintz and old furniture