There is no doubt in my mind that the proper furniture for Edwin’s dressing-room has not yet been evolved out of the inner consciousness of some enterprising and clever designer of dressing-tables and wardrobes. Of course there are plenty of so-called gentlemen’s wardrobes, but I have never yet found one that was perfectly satisfactory, and if any one knows of one I should be very glad to hear from that happy creature.

I am quite sure gentlemen’s coats should never be suspended from hooks, for if they are hung up there is always an unpleasant bulge in the collar, and it is impossible to keep the wretched things in shape; almost as impossible as it is to make a man look nice unless he has a valet to look after his clothes, brush them, fold them, and, in fact, turn him out respectably, with a neatly folded, clean umbrella and decent hat—that is to say, the ordinary male, who has business occupations, and gets up at the very last moment he can, to be able to snatch his breakfast and then catch his train.

I have, personally, no very expensive yearnings, but when I see one who shall be nameless in a coat that looks as if it had voyaged up the chimney and back, nether garments that, to put it mildly, have seen better days, and a hat that would disgrace the Sunday get-up of his own coachman, and hear that no one is to touch the venerable accumulation in a wardrobe upstairs, I do long for a good, strong-minded man-servant indoors who would see to his master’s clothes, and insist on their being worn properly and treated decently.

This sounds like straying from the subject, but it really is not, for one unanswerable argument which puts a stop to a great deal of my eloquence is, ‘If I had a decent place to keep my clothes in I should always look respectable.’ Now, my readers shall give me their opinion as to the decency, or otherwise, of the accommodation afforded to this nameless individual.

In the first place, there is a charming-looking wardrobe in ash. The top is embellished by a ledge, on which artistic pottery is meant to stand, but where at this present moment repose a microscope, a lamp, very grimy and full of dreadful-looking oil that no one may touch, several dusty piles of lectures and reports of divers societies, and on the plain space below are at least five paper bandboxes, containing old and dilapidated hats, all more or less suggestive of Noah’s ark and scarecrows; yet one and all far too precious to give away, and which no one dare touch, on pain of instant death.

One half of this wardrobe is lined with striped calico, against the dust, and is used for hanging up coats, dressing-gowns, &c., and where there is quite a crowd of the most hideous old coats, all too precious to part with—I can’t think why—and then on the other side there is a deep space sacred to trousers, and three deep drawers besides, for shirts and under-garments of all kinds. Now this is actually not sufficient accommodation, and I have other drawers in the bedroom itself, where stores of summer or winter raiment, as the case may be, repose; and the dress things are also in yet another place; but I do think it is rather a mistake to have so much space for spoiling coats by hanging them up, and I am thinking of having shelves put in in that division, and seeing if that will be any good at all, though, as it is so much easier to hang up a coat than to fold it up, I much fear there will be strenuous opposition to that plan—at least at the first.

A wardrobe is a necessity in a dressing-room—unless one is lucky enough to find a good deep cupboard there already—and they can be bought at all prices. The one described above was about 10l., and is certainly very pretty, but I am sure it is nothing like as useful or as well arranged as it ought to be, and I have one in the nursery, which is all drawers and shelves, that cost 4l. 10s., and is hideous, which I am thinking of having painted turquoise blue, and adding brass handles and substituting this for the ash one, which can go nicely into the spare room, where it will no longer be desecrated with all sorts of dÉbris being placed where pretty china is meant to go. There is one piece of furniture, invented by Mr. Watts, of Grafton Street, Tottenham Court Road, W., which is, however, perfect for a dressing-room, and therefore deserves more than a word of mention.

It is a combination of dressing-table and washing-stand that is simply invaluable. A long glass starts on the right-hand side from three drawers, with a place for brushes and combs, while on the left is ample space for washing, with a high tiled back, and a species of shelf to hold bottles, glasses, &c. There is also a deep space under the marble shelf on which the jug and basin stand, meant for boots, and covered in with a cretonne curtain on a brass rod, and is altogether as charming, artistic-looking, and useful a piece of furniture as any one would wish; it costs 6l. 10s. in stained deal, is beautifully made, and would not only be useful in a dressing-room, but in a young girl’s room or any small place where there really is not sufficient accommodation for both washing-stand and toilet-table. I have narrow tapestry mats trimmed with ball fringe on the shelves, but I should not like to say how many have been wanted there, for men never can remember that wet sponges should be put in the sponge-dish and not on the new covers, or that brushes are best in the drawers intended for them, and not for sundry bits and scraps of paper, old soiled gloves, spoiled white ties, cartridges, fly-books, bits of gut, string, ‘objects’ for microscopes, and other nastinesses ‘too numerous to mention,’ as the auctioneers say when they have come to the end of their descriptive resources.

And, apropos of this, let me beg Angelina never to allow accumulations in either small or big drawers if she can possibly help it; nothing breeds moths or harbours dust like this, and I should advise her occasionally to brave Edwin’s wrath, and turn out on her own account, if he is obdurate, and will keep every scrap and shred of rubbish that has ever come into his possession, because he cannot believe a time will not come when the possession of a few inches of paper, string, or catgut will be of paramount importance to him, and when a store of old clothes will stand between him and utter and entire destitution of raiment.

Now, without emulating a silly little friend of mine, who was only saved by the difference of a pot of snowdrops from bartering her bridegroom’s best coat for a supply of flowers, with one of those engaging gentlemen who frequent the suburbs with a supply of blossoms, warranted to fade and die utterly within the space of twenty-four hours, I would strongly suggest a little dissimulation to Angelina, should Edwin prove the orthodox hoarder of old clothes that it appears to me, from judicious questioning, most men are.

Angelina should make a point of remembering the date of Edwin’s coats, and should mark them in an invisible place (on the lining of the inside of the sleeve is the best) with the date of the purchase; and with this triumphant proof of her accuracy should she face and utterly confound Edwin when he meets her request for the coat to be given away, with the remark, ‘That coat! What can you be thinking of? I only bought it a month or two ago!’ He is often so flabbergasted at learning the treasure is at least eighteen months old that he says no more, and allows Angelina to bear it off to gladden the heart of some old pensioner, on whose back it somehow looks so extremely well that Edwin cannot believe Angelina was right in her dates, and at every opportunity points out its excellent appearance on Jones or Styles as a proof of her reckless extravagance.

A little careful stealing from a husband who is an inveterate hoarder, and will not even succumb to the uncontradictable date, can be practised to advantage, and at the risk of exposing my own wickedness, and believing that a male eye rarely, if ever, falls upon my words of wisdom, I may tell Angelina in the very strictest confidence how I have sometimes been driven to circumvent the nameless one spoken of before.

I have watched the gradual overflow of the wardrobe—ay, even on to the floor and the three chairs, and, biding my time, have neatly arranged the drawers, being quite sure I shall be asked immediately what I have done with all the precious things, missed the moment the dressing-room is entered. I disclose them arranged elsewhere, and after a week or two, when the gardener and the coachman’s children have been scanned surreptitiously but eagerly to see if I have already given these valuable relics away, they become forgotten, or are only asked after occasionally; then, as time goes on, they are quite forgotten, and if asked for after three months cannot be found, as they are already doing duty elsewhere, under new and altered circumstances. Old boots it is almost impossible to get rid of without a positive battle, though how a man’s happiness or welfare depends on knowing he has fourteen pairs of dreadful old boots under the kitchen dresser, to say nothing of as many more concealed in his own room and his dressing-room, is really more than I can understand, and must be one of those problems of life we are compelled to take as such, and leave for time to solve, if it possibly can.

I do not think it is of the very smallest use to give Edwin anything pretty of his ‘very own,’ as the children say, in his dressing-room. It is always a narrow, circumscribed spot, and brackets are apt to be knocked askew and their contents smashed, picture-glasses also coming in for similar hard treatment, while extra shelves for books are soon overloaded, and come rattling down in the dead of night, taking at least ten years off one’s life with the awful fright received.

Therefore, if Edwin have a really nice wardrobe, a chair, and a dressing-table and washing-stand combined, as described previously, it is really all he wants, unless, of course, the room be a good size, when the walls can be decorated at will. Equally, of course, the wall-paper and the dado should match the bedroom, and here more than anywhere else should be the substantial dado of either cretonne or matting, as here the walls get mysterious knocks and indentations even more than they do in the passages and bedrooms.

If the bath has to be taken in the dressing-room—and sometimes even now old houses have not bath-rooms—the bath should stand on a large square of oilcloth, covered by a ‘bath blanket.’ This should be taken up and dried, and the oilcloth wiped carefully, as soon as the bath is emptied, or both will soon rot and be spoiled.

Very nice ‘bath blankets’ are made by taking the old-gold and dark brown blankets one buys of Mansergh and Sons, Lancaster, from 3s. to 11s. 6d. a pair, according to size, though those at 7s. a pair are the best size. A piece should be cut from one end to make the blanket square; and one of Francis’s conventional designs should be ironed off in each corner, which is then worked over in either outline or a thick ‘rope’ or twisted chain-stitch, in double crewels, in about two or three colours. For instance, old gold looks well with the work in two shades of brown crewels, with a dash of dull blue; the brown blankets with golden crewels with, perhaps, a dash of red. But as it is rather difficult to get the design clearly on the rough, fuzzy blanket, an easier style is in cross-stitch. The canvas must be very coarse, and tacked to the blanket. An edging, as well as corners, looks nice, and the canvas threads must be pulled out afterwards. I think a big cross-stitch, monogram, or cypher looks nice. The edges of the blanket can be either button-holed over or hemmed with a line of cross-stitch defining the hem. These blankets are a great ornament to a bath or dressing-room, and are invaluable in any room where the bath must be taken in the room itself.