I have already discussed one manner of disposing of the usual third room, but I hope most devoutly that the unparalleled sacrifice of devoting it to the use of the maids may never be required of anyone. For unless people can sit in their dining-room in the morning; and I cannot imagine anything more distasteful; the drawing-room or parlour must be turned into a regular hack room, and we are deprived at one fell swoop of a nice place in which to receive our guests or of a fresh chamber for use in the evening. It is a great thing to have entirely different surroundings then, and a pretty, well-aired and ventilated room in which to spend the fag end of a day. Circumstances must always govern cases, and there can be no set rules for the universal regulation of all lives, and if English people would only realise this fact, their sojourn here would be made far more interesting than it is at present. No one has ever taken the third room for the maids, therefore no one can ever do so. The door has always been in that position, therefore it must remain so. That room has always been draughty, therefore draughty it shall continue until the end of the chapter. These are the arguments used, if argument of any kind is allowed. As a rule the position is accepted unconditionally, and because an error has been made from the first, it is allowed to continue unchecked when a little forethought would circumvent that special mistake, and would make a room charming, habitable and warm, which hitherto has been nothing of the kind.

Let me illustrate what I mean by an example. At a small house we possess in Watford there is the third room in question, which has been made into a very pretty library by the clever hand of Mr Arthur Smee, but which the first year we were in possession had never been used save as a home for books and a reception place for anyone who might come on business. No one had ever sat there, nor could I discover anyone who would; but I myself was then ‘on the shelf,’ and had never entered the room at all, being often absent from home, and always, whether there or elsewhere, confined to the circumscribed area of my own bed and sitting-rooms. I had asked questions about the room but could never get a satisfactory reply only the ever-repeated answer, ‘Oh, it looks all right, but just you try to sit there, that’s all, you’ll soon see why we can’t do anything of the kind.’ Now here is the room produced just as it was before I went into it, and I wonder if anyone can see the real mistake in the design? I own I could not perceive it from the picture. At first I asked if my people were ridiculous enough to fancy the room had a ghost. No not a ghost exactly; but in a tentative tone of voice something quite as uncanny and quite as intangible. Was it draughty? They didn’t think so; and yet it was impossible to warm it. In fact, it was quite out of the question that it could be sat in, and there it remained until one day

when I felt rather better than usual, and went downstairs determined to conquer or die in the attempt. Dear readers! if you could only have seen that room you would, some of you, never have believed in me again for one single moment. The centre table was heaped with books, old papers and magazines. The matting on the floor had one long, thin and solitary rug. There were aimless cretonne curtains at the window, which couldn’t possibly be reached, because the desk was stuck right against it; and, worst fault of all, the door opened on the wrong side, and so whenever it was open the fire was as it were in the passage. And as had been rightly said, there was not a single place to put a chair; and, indeed, the untidy thing in the photograph was the only specimen of the genus that the chamber possessed, if we except an ordinary bedroom seat, and another of a similar kind by the desk, neither of which could be sat upon, save by an individual who had serious writing to do. Then someone had placed in one corner a deck-lounge, in, I suppose, a feeble attempt at being happy, and never did a lounge less deserve its name. It was located between the window and the fire, and therefore succeeded in nothing, save in being entirely out of place and in the way. There too the shelves for books were left as shown in the photograph, and had none of the small curtains over the smaller recesses, so necessary to break up the lines and to serve as hiding-places for old and way-worn literature. The fireplace was hideous, and a Moloch as regards coal, while, of course the room could never be brought above freezing pitch, because of the relative positions of the fireplace, door, and window, each of which was put just exactly where it ought not to be. The design and colour of the room were right enough, but the touches which turn a room into a habitation were never more conspicuous by their absence.

I don’t know how it is, but I can put a room straight in five minutes when another person merely grumbles and declares that nothing can be done; and in a pious rage I set to work and very soon had made a considerable alteration in the place. Although, of course, much could not be accomplished until I sent for my factotum Joe, and had the door moved to the other side, that elegant plaster in the ceiling dislodged, and the hideous tiles in the grate renovated. Then I had a good thick portiÈre placed inside the door, hung the pictures properly, arranged the books and china, put the curtains where they were required in the bookcase, altered the window-curtains, put the desk on one side, not in the very centre of the window, and imported a couple of deep, good basket-chairs from Heelas, of Reading, and some smaller Liberty chairs and tables. The centre table was put on one side, and not in the middle of the room, with magazines and newspapers; and after that I put down proper and suitable rugs, instead of the big one,—beautiful in itself and in its proper place which was a passage—but ridiculous in the middle of a matted floor, where it resembled nothing so much as a garden walk. Since then the room has been more used than any other sitting-room in the house, and is now pronounced one of the most comfortable in the dreary little place, or, I should say, in what was a dreary little place until it was taken vigorously in hand. Albeit, nothing can make the house a real success, because it is built east and west, and with all the windows to the west and to the north and south: these, by the way, raking the back yards of the neighbours fore and aft: while, except for the bath-room window, there is not one which looks towards the east, where, of course, one gets the pleasantest view and the morning sun: a great consideration in a house which is literally a summer house, and where therefore, the western sun is useless and tormenting. Even in the winter an afternoon sun is no earthly use, for by the time it comes round to the western windows it has to retire ignominiously into a bank of fog or cloud; therefore such a house as this especial one should never be taken unless the owner will close the north and north-west windows, and open out big square bows on the south and south-eastern aspect in the manner the windows should have been placed when the house was built. It is always a pleasing reflection to me that the man who designed this house is dead, and cannot now make any other person as miserable by his awkward vagaries as he has made me. If he had simply consented to one or two alterations, and had given us decent grates, and proper servants’ accommodation, the house wouldn’t have been ‘half bad,’ and I do not suppose would have cost a farthing more to build than it cost at first. The cornices were so terrible that they had in some cases to be cut away and reduced to one-fourth, while the elaborate and expensive style in which they had been liberally picked out in all the colours of the rainbow, was obliterated by colour-wash at once; yet the money spent on this ‘decoration’ would have gone some way towards new grates; and my pet plain wooden mantels would not have cost half what the monstrous marble ones did, with which one can’t wrestle, because of the round openings in the mantelpieces, which would not allow of the cheap introduction of the pretty, square, slow-combustion stoves, with plain tiles, to which I must confess I am absolutely devoted. I think, if their third room in any way resembles the one illustrated here, this picture will help my readers very much, if they are anxious to have a library, a room where the master can sit and smoke, and where business people can be interviewed. But, if books are not plentiful, and the husband doesn’t smoke and is not much at home, the room would not be of very much service to the mistress and her girls, should she be fortunate enough to be the proud possessor of grown-up daughters. And there are, of course, yet other means of treating and disposing of the room. If children are numerous, and bedrooms few, this third room may have to be taken for schoolroom purposes, or, at best, may have to be used by boys and girls in the holidays, or when lessons have to be prepared, and in this case it would require quite different treatment to what it would receive were it merely a pretty sitting-room, as it should most undoubtedly be.

If the sitting-room aspect has to be considered it should be made as bright and charming as possible, and should be furnished with an eye to the particular occupation of the house mistress, who is sure to have some idiosyncrasy, and will either work, write or ‘housekeep’ indefatigably. If she does this latter, she will want room for her household books, her receipt books, and her house books, containing all kinds of hints as to what to do and when to do it, which any woman collects if she is in the least house-proud and anxious to make the most of her surroundings. In this case, one of the recesses could be fitted with shelves on the same principle as those shown in the photograph, but they should not be higher than the mantelpiece, and where there is a gaping space, curtains should be hung, or else doors placed to make a species of cupboard with copper hinges and a good lock. In the other recess a writing-table could be placed, with some shelves above it to hold books of reference, and this table must be furnished with really good locks, for here should be kept account and cheque books, and receipts and any private unanswered letters. Though let me once more impress on all my readers never to keep any save business letters, and never to keep those when the business to which they refer is completely done with and ended. No one knows how long he or she may live, nor if sudden death or illness may not leave all one’s secrets, should one have any, or the secrets of others, open to anyone who may have access to one’s belongings; besides, we have no right to keep other folk’s letters, once they are replied to. We may ourselves be secrecy itself, but we cannot answer for the secret-keeping capacity of our nearest and dearest.

If the window should be, as I hope it may be, one of the delightful Caldecott ones, it should have a straight window-seat arranged exactly as in this sketch, and thus we should be provided with a most comfortable place to rest in, more especially if we supplement it with several big Liberty pillows. These can be covered in plain linen covers, edged with frills of the same or of Torchon lace. If this latter be used, a wide insertion should be laid on all round the pillows, about an inch from where the lace is sewn on. The lace must not be too full. If the pillow should be a yard square, or the more ordinary size of three-quarters of a yard, the quantity of lace used should be one-half longer than the length of the sides of the pillow, i.e., 6 yards of lace would be wanted for a pillow the sides of which measured 4 yards, while 3 yards would be sufficient for the smaller size, as the lace is only just fulled on. It should not be heavily gathered, or it will not look well.

Beautiful pillows can be made by Miss Goodban, of 9 Westbourne Terrace Road, Hyde Park of these same linens. She embroiders them all over in flax and edges them with Torchon, and if these cases are simply buttoned on like an ordinary pillowcase they can be washed in an hour and replaced. Liberty silk covers also wash splendidly if one has a careful maid. I have never sent mine to the ordinary wash; but washed at home they came out of the trial as good as new; a fact I do not think many people can know, or we should not see as many dirty covers as we do in the houses of folks who ought to know a great deal better. The window-seat cover should be of some hard-wearing material, such as ribbed and stamped Victoria cord, or a really good all-wool tapestry. It is never the least use to use one of the cheap tapestries provided so lavishly nowadays for this purpose, for if we do, we shall at once be terribly disappointed by the effect. For these seats in most rooms have a great deal of wear and in consequence if a cheap stuff is used it will not last any time. To ensure real and satisfactory length of days for any material, we must have one made of all wool, and not wool and cotton mixed. The actual expense of these seats, and indeed of any fitted seat, is the upholstress’s time and work, which costs as much if the material is only 1s. a yard, as it does if one pays a guinea for the same amount, besides which there is the continual worry of the British workman amongst us. Though why women should not be their own upholstresses I for one can’t think, and I should strongly advise any girl about to marry on limited means to learn to make up her own covers and cushions as well as how to cook the dinner. Then if the husband has a knowledge of carpentering and is handy about the house, the place can always look nice at one-third the expense it would cost were a workman or workwoman sent for when the smallest alterations were required.

Given the window-seat there should be no need for a sofa, and that is a decided consideration, but whatever chairs are had they should be comfortable ones, and none are better than the excellent wicker ones of which I have so often spoken. If expense be a great object one can frequently buy these chairs from travelling hawkers who go about the country with vans of chairs tables and baskets, and sell these special chairs for about 5s. or 6s. in wicker, simply stained a faint brown, which said staining I much prefer to paint or enamel, as it never becomes in the least shabby. A cushion must be made to fit the seat finished off with a 4 or 5 inch frill, not any deeper, and another cushion must be made to fit the back, while another must be placed round the sides of the chair, properly stuffed and ‘buttoned down.’ This said buttoning down can be done by an amateur if she purchases the proper needles for the purpose and secures the buttons with very strong packthread. And I consider such cushions should all be made in this style, as a plain surface wears out twice as soon as one that is arranged with buttons; while, if one is clean and careful, the buttons need not mean an accumulation of dust and dirt, both being got rid of perfectly well if the cushions are properly brushed and beaten and attended to by a housemaid who knows her work. By the way, it takes 2¼ yards of double-width material to make a cover for an ordinary wicker chair, or 4½ of single width material or of cretonne, but I cannot advise cretonne for the purpose, or for any real hard wear on any chairs, it so very soon becomes dirty, and is always in the wash-tub and in the hands of the upholstress. If the room is very tiny the window-seat can be furnished with three deep drawers in which we can keep any amount of odds and ends. Of course, the number of the drawers will depend on the length of the window-seat, but three should be the outside number. In any case they would come just under the seat and be hidden from observation either by the deep frill or a woollen fringe, and should open and shut very easily indeed. In a small house these drawers would be invaluable for one of the principal drawbacks to a suburban residence is the fact that there are no cupboards in them, neither are there many recesses which we can utilise as wardrobes should we require to do so. Let us suppose that this special room is given over to the mistress of the house and that she is content to have the ever-delightful shade of ‘Panton’ blue, than which nothing is better in every way to live with, she would then have the short curtains shown in the picture of some yellow material, Wallace’s diamond serge for choice, lined with sateen or plain serge, if there be many draughts or very much sun: then the material for the window-seat should be in golden brown or turquoise blue stamped Victoria cord, and the cushions should be in yellow, blue and pink linen, worked in very coarse and thick real flax by Miss Goodban. If the room has very much traffic, the floor should have a surround of plain brown cork carpet, with a good blue square of Wallace’s Dunelm carpet in the centre, just lightly fastened down in such a manner that it can be easily removed for shaking. Personally, I never like nails put in any carpet; they cannot help spoiling and tearing it, and it is far better to sew on the carpet itself a succession of tiny bits of tape, of course on the wrong side, and close to the edge. In these pieces of tape should the nails be placed. The tapes can always be renewed, and in this case the edge of the carpet is never touched, and cannot present the ‘worried’ appearance which characterises so many really good floor coverings. In this special room the carpet should be in a special shade of blue, which would harmonise with the paper. There are two or three different ways of treating the walls of such a room, and the one I prefer is to have electric turquoise Aspinall for all the paint, the Panton blue paper, and a floral frieze with a great deal of yellow in it; or, again, one can have the blue paper, but with real ivory paint, and an anaglypta dado painted in the same shade instead of the frieze; while a really useful and hard-wearing room may have a soft brown dado, and all soft brown paint, and a darker blue paper. In this case both paper and paint must be selected by someone who understands the science of colour. The brown should have a good deal of cream in it, and the blue should have a great deal of indigo and not any shade of green or turquoise at all. Here the window-seat cushion should be covered in brown stamped Victoria cord, and the curtains should be in blue serge or Tanjore cloth. I have never yet found a blue serge which would stand sun, and not fade in a couple of weeks in the most distressing manner, while almost any yellow serge stands the sunshine, and I can myself guarantee Wallace’s diamond serge in yellow, for that has proved itself absolutely fast. Shoolbred guarantees the Tanjore cloth, but personally I have had no experience of this material, having had neither opportunity nor occasion to try it. It is 4s. 9d. a yard, and is very pretty to look at; and is besides a most excellent width. Need I say that any cornice in this room must be simply coloured cream, and the ceiling papered in some inexpensive and pretty yellow and white paper? If blue should be objected to, or one is tired of it, a very pretty sitting-room can be made from any floral paper which is really good, and, I say, hand-made. I am devoted to a beautiful heliotrope and green clematis paper sold by Smee & Cobay, and also to the ‘ragged robin’ paper sold by Haines, and either of these papers should be used above a dado of some kind or other. A full green sateen curtain dado is the best, and in this case all the paint should be the same shade of green as that chosen for the dado, and that should be one of the tints in the leaves on the paper itself. Then the carpet and curtains should be green, and so should be the window-seat and the ceiling paper. The other shades in the paper should appear in the cushions and table-covers: although as regards the clematis paper I have never come across any good heliotrope materials, and have only found this colour in silk and in a capital cretonne sold by the Cavendish House Company, Cheltenham. I fancy that Warings, of Liverpool, have also a good ‘lilac’ cretonne. They certainly possess an admirable wall-paper with lilacs on a striped background, which should not be forgotten by anyone who thinks of using that always satisfactory decorative harmony of heliotrope and green. If there is not much wear in these rooms, I should advise the green ‘Isis’ matting as a background for rugs, but if there be a great deal of traffic, the soft green ‘Roman carpet’ sold by Shoolbred does excellently with some sort of a ‘surround’ which is easily cleaned, such as Jackson’s varnish stains, or plain cream matting, or plain cork carpet, according to the state of the floor and the particular tastes of the owner of the room, who should of course have one of Giles’s removable parqueterie surrounds if she can afford it. In any case she must never allow either a fitted carpet or a patterned surround to fidget the eye, avoiding as a real sin against the first principles of art, those terrible materials which imitate parqueterie or tiles, or pretend to be anything save what they are, and giving a wide berth to felt, an admirable material to look at, but a fearful and abominable dust-trap. So indeed are fluffy materials of any sort or kind if they cannot be cleaned without sweeping or by the friendly aid of a damp duster, which just passed over them once a day, keeps the stain or matting or cork carpet in order, and prevents the accumulation in corners that must ensue if we have not a washable material as a surround to whatever carpet we may select. If we have matting all over the floor, it is well to recollect that salt and water form an excellent mixture to use to cleanse it with, the salt in some way preserving and toughening the fibres of the matting as well as cleaning it in a most effectual style.

The principal things to recollect in this, and, indeed in any room are, first, that it must be made draught-proof and be properly ventilated, that we must so arrange that the door does not open right on the fire, that while the furniture may be as simple as we like, everything must be made to harmonise, being either bought for or adapted to the room itself and the special occupations of the room’s mistress. Fortunately if our purses are light, there is abundance of inexpensive furniture in these days which I cannot, I feel, praise too highly. I remember the dreadful struggles I had, to make my own first house pretty some six-and-twenty years ago, when there was nothing to be had but heavy wood and solid repps, and no one had whispered ‘Liberty,’ or mentioned serge, or bamboo and wicker furniture, or, if they had, had murmured it so gently that the murmur had not reached the ears of anyone at all. Now, scoff as one may at wicker work and bamboo, I venture to say that by them lies the way of salvation for the third room in an impecunious household. I have bought the most charming and beautiful little cupboard tables at Shoolbred’s, the most comfortable and excellent chairs at Smee & Cobay’s, at Heelas, of Reading, and at Wallace’s, which have all the delights of a real upholstered expensive arm-chair, if one has the cushions made at home, at as many shillings as the other costs pounds. While the most useful bookcase I ever came across is also matting and bamboo, and this can have a species of cupboard shelf made by hanging a curtain over the third receptacle for books, which said curtain is like charity: it covers a multitude of sins in the shape of rolls of wall paper, odds and ends of patterns, and old books which have seen better days, and yet are not good enough to re-bind, and yet are too good to throw away. Indeed, no book should ever be treated in such an ignominious fashion. At the worst it can be sent to a hospital, or be kept in our own special hospital box, which should be in every house, for how can we tell when infectious disease may not find us out? In that case we shall be thankful to be possessed of something to read which we can afterwards burn without any arriÈre pensÉe in the matter at all.

One thing should be in every morning-room, or third room, or library, call this little chamber by what name we will; and that is an invaluable small closing-table I have discovered in Kensington High Street. It costs about 4s. 11d., simply stained dark brown, can be folded up and put against a wall, or laid under a sofa when not in use, and is altogether most unobtrusive and excellent, for it can be set up in one second, and is admirable for a thousand purposes. I think it is large enough to ‘cut out’ upon, although I am not an authority on the subject of work. I know it is extremely handy for tea, and that one can make scrapbooks upon it, and write upon it too, while as it can be folded and put on one side at any moment, it does not get over-crowded with books and ornaments, and is therefore always available. The ordinary small occasional table never can be that, for it is usually clad in a nice square table-cover and has flowers or a plant in the centre, and has moreover, every available corner filled with books and ‘twos and threes,’ while the modest and retiring folding-table only comes out for use, and is never ornamental, and will not be used otherwise than for the purpose for which it is made. Of course the walnut Sutherland table is much nicer in every way, but is not to be had under 30s., is often of most inferior wood liable to scratches and spots, and is also all too often opened out clad in its tablecloth and ornamented to death. But we have no qualms about the little cheap folding-table. If it is scratched and spotted it can be scrubbed clean and given a new coat of Jackson’s varnish stain and be in a moment as good as new if not better. Just one word en parenthÉse, as it were, about stains. Do not let anything anyone can say induce you to attempt the beautiful green staining we all so much admire at home, for if you do, it can be nothing but a most ghastly failure. True, the particular piece of furniture will be green, but such a green! for the proper effect can only be obtained in the same way really good French polish is procured, and that, as everyone knows, can never be got save by a professional hand who knows the work, and has never yet been known to divulge the secret of success. No; the green stain is not for the amateur, be sure of that, while the ‘oak,’ and ‘dark oak,’ and ‘walnut’ varnish stains are exactly all that they ought to be.

In this room a screen by the door is often a most blessed possession, and as screens can be bought so cheaply nowadays everyone can avail herself of the comfort procured by a judicious use of them. Liberty first, and Shoolbred next, should be searched for an inexpensive screen, for sometimes Liberty has none, and then Shoolbred may come to the rescue, or our experience of both shops may be reversed; it all depends on which place has had the last consignment from Japan. I bought a beautiful screen at Liberty’s one year, about a month before Christmas, for 18s. 9d., but on applying for another in the following March, found all were sold out, and I had to go farther afield, discovering the one I wanted in a shop in High Street, Kensington, the name of which I have forgotten. True both Liberty and Shoolbred had plenty of screens but neither had an inexpensive one, with a back warranted to resist the frequent and uncalled-for assaults of the British housemaid. By the way, a screen should always be placed behind the door, which should in most cases open from left to right into a room if the room is in the least degree like the one illustrated. I am not fond of a door opening into a hall, and of course the perfect door should not open, but slide into the wall, but perfection is a word never heard, and certainly not understood at all in the usual suburb.

If the room be blue, the portiÈre should be of printed velveteen in shades of yellow. With a floral paper it may be pink or green, but in any case a plain material should not be employed as a portiÈre. One should always have a figured stuff there, and if one can afford it one cannot improve on the aforesaid velveteen. PortiÈres should be made up by a really competent hand and should be lined, and edged with either ‘grip-cord’ or fan-edging, as ball fringe is apt to come to grief in this situation, the portiÈre being often caught in the door, or as often grasped either by the parlour-maid as she announces a visitor or by any small child who may have to open or close the door. I may seem to speak unduly on the subject both of portiÈres and screens but unless they are employed freely, I can assure my readers they will never circumvent the ordinary suburban residence, but that if both are used, any house, even the most jerry-built one which ever disgraced a ‘Park,’ or blotted the erst-while fair appearance of a ‘Grove,’ can be made habitable. Without these aids to health, to say nothing of decoration, such a house would be an impossible home for anyone not born and bred in the Arctic regions; while outside blinds, if they can only be just nailed up pro tem., and be mere grass mats bought for a few shillings at Treloar’s, can circumvent extreme heat, which often is as bad to bear in these terrible houses as the excessive cold and draughts which characterise them. I know that as a rule three years sets the suburban tenant on the prowl, and, as I said before, the mere idea that such can be the case prevents many a woman from making her house either pretty to look at or even weather-tight. But three years’ experience of untoward weather in a jerry-built structure can undermine the health of any woman, whereas she probably would not move and would certainly keep much better in health if not entirely well, did she do her utmost to get over the drawbacks at once. At the same time the hall must be warmed by using the small, portable stove sold by Wolff & Sons, 119 New Bond Street, if it is out of the question to obtain warmth from a real fire-place, and very great care must be given to ventilation by wide-open windows whenever it is possible, and it is always possible during some part of the day: and by ventilators, as suggested before, which should always be open at night, especially when lamps are lighted and fires kept up. For an unventilated room means a sleepy head, and dulness and stupidity instead of the liveliness which should characterise a gathering of the family when the work of the day is safely over and done.