A beautiful room is far more beautiful when there is no square means of egress suggesting the unpleasant idea of departure. Where, however, the means are limited, one pretty portiere covering, or replacing an ugly door, or curtaining an outside one, gives an air of taste and elegance. Midway in a hall, as in the case of an outer door, drafts are prevented by a heavy fall of drapery.

They should not repeat the curtains of the room, but represent a separate idea, though in harmony with the room. They are frequently made double to correspond with rooms of different colors.

At the end of a long room in a friend's house there was a door with glass at the top, useful in dark days but making an ugly cross light with the windows of the room. The lady of the house dreamed of rich stuffs while she pieced, out of olive cotton flannel, four bands of cretonne in a flower pattern, two narrow and two wide, and a piece of worsted goods flowered on the right side but striped on the wrong, none of it new, - a portiere which has been taken for something rich and strange, and much admired.

The lining was some old calico cut a little wider than the door. At the bottom was a horizontal strip of the olive cotton flannel, then a wide band of cretonne, then the striped (wrong side) goods placed perpendicularly, then a narrow band of cretonne, then the center of olive cotton flannel with the stripes repeated toward the top.

Portiere Of Chinese Embroidery

On the contrary, a New York friend, with the large opportunities and splendid economy of rich people, bought, at one quarter the original price, four Chinese embroidered dress patterns, giving "only one hundred dollars for them." With great skill she combined them in one rich portiere for a large double door.