The terrace is the Englishman's porch. It is usually located between the wings at the back of the house, overlooking the garden. There is always shade to be found at one end or the other, but it is also provided with awnings fastened to the back of the house and a large French umbrella placed above the table. Decorated with numerous small bay trees and garden pottery and furnished with bright painted Windsor chairs, it has many fascinations and offers an excellent substitute for an undesirably located porch.

One may also replace the front porch living-room with a garden nook. Shade and shelter are offered by an attractive pagoda tea-house or a vine-covered arbor. Hammocks may be hung from the trees and garden furniture placed around them. There is no more delightful place for serving tea than the garden, and if the tennis courts are adjacent, its popularity will be established. Posts with swinging iron lanterns are necessary at night, and low stone walls and a small formal flower garden lend additional attractiveness.

A very comfortable all-year-round living-room was constructed in one case on the roof of a one-story wing. No other space was available. It had a green cement floor, a glass roof, and gray cement side walls with enormous sliding windows which were thrown wide open in summer and in winter covered with heavy curtains. A brick fireplace was built in and there were many growing plants and window boxes. The furniture consisted of oak bookcases, a large oak reading and writing table, a wicker couch and comfortable wicker chairs.

The "built-in" outdoor living-room, though paradoxical in name, is gaining favor for the all-year-round country-house, especially when it is necessary to economize on space. The space which would have been consumed by a veranda and indoor living-room are thrown into one, making a single spacious room open entirely on three sides and sometimes partially on a fourth, and equipped with great removable windows. This provides all the comforts without any of the discomforts of a veranda in summer, and with an open fireplace or steam heat affords a larger living-room for the winter than could otherwise have been obtained.

One of the most successful living-rooms of this type was a later addition to a small country house. It occupied the ground floor of an entire wing twenty feet wide by twenty-four feet long. It was arranged with large sixteen-paned removable Colonial windows on four sides, and was readied by descending three steps from the little reception-room, from which it was separated by double glass doors. The second floor of the new wing was utilized for an extra bedroom and bath and a little stairway led up to them from the living-room.

The walls were of plain pine boards stained gray and covered over with a green lattice. There was a beamed ceiling stained brown and also a brown stained floor. At one end an enormous brick fireplace was built flush with the wall and grouped around it were a low fire bench and settle and a small oblong table. They were made by a carpenter out of pine boards and stained a walnut brown which was waxed into a soft, dull finish. A little further back from the fireplace were three large wicker chairs painted green and upholstered in a peacock design India print on a sea-blue ground.

A seven-foot table stood in the center of the room. It was stained to match the other pieces and held two lamps with wicker shades lined with orange silk, books, and pottery bowls of yellow and greenish blue. There were two other tables in the room, one a little round green writing table tucked between the windows at one corner, and the other a wicker hourglass tea table at the opposite end of the room. Facing the windows which overlooked the lawn was a commodious steamer chair of wicker and two hour-glass chairs of bamboo upholstered in the green and blue print material.

Two large homespun rugs of tan with brown borders covered the floor. These were woven to order at a very low price by the members of a Pennsylvania religious sect At the windows were fish net curtains and green sunfast hangings. In the summer time there were flower boxes with pink geraniums under the open windows, and the large pottery bowls held blossoms or greens all year round.

Outside this room was a narrow uncovered porch facing the lawn and known as "the deck." Here breakfast was served every pleasant summer morning, and afternoon tea all through the spring and fall.

Is there anything which can give as much zest to a meal as the open air? One finds throughout all the small European towns and villages, practically every family with a scrap of a lawn or a garden, taking their daytime meals in vine-covered arbors attached to one side of the house. Americans are somewhat more reticent about dining in public, or more particular about having their food served hot. Luncheon or supper on the lawn takes the form of an occasional treat greatly relished by the younger members of the family. The dining-room of the country house, however, should aim to bring as much of the outdoors inside as possible. Its ideal location is directly off the veranda and sepentre-nous breakfast service. When set for luncheon or dinner a large-sized oblong top was brought out from the pantry and placed upon it. Instead of a sideboard, a long narrow table of black wicker was used with a large mirror reaching to the ceiling set into the wall behind it. There were white lacquered wire plant stands in the windows with little pockets in the sides for trailing plants. Two white lacquer flower baskets stood on the side table, and a combination fruit dish and greenery in the center of the dining-table. Between meal times it was filled with glass fruits.

The electric lights in the ceiling had unusual long pointed shades finished with a tassel. They were of silk Batik in red, orange, green and black, and the little shields for the side brackets matched them. When in repose there was nothing about the room which marked it as a dining-room, but when the table was set with its buff and green linen cloth, its amber glassware, and its dull red bordered service plates, the surroundings adjusted themselves equally well to its use as a dining-room.

An attractive dining-porch was constructed in the rear of one country-house overlooking a deep wooded gorge. The dining-table and chairs were stained and decorated at home with stiff nosegays in decalcomania, that simple process of transfer pictures reminiscent of childhood days, and covered with sturdy weather-proof varnish. It made interesting dining furniture for pleasant weather and did not weigh upon the mistress's mind in case of rain or storm.

The library of the country house is not one of its less important features. In times of complete bodily and mental relaxation following brisk physical exercise, or on the long dull rainy days of the spring or autumn, there is nothing so delightful as curling up in its quiet and refreshing seclusion with a book or magazine. The library should be located in a shaded part of the house. Can you not picture such a room with a large brick fireplace and that important library asset, the clock, perched on the simple white mantel ? There would, of course, be two large winged chintz-covered chairs drawn up to the fender. The built-in bookcases might be white and the walls above them covered with a stiff, small, floral-patterned paper or fine paneling with prim stencils. There would be one or two writing tables and a broad window seat with comfortable upholstery - for those who have once tasted the charms of reading in a window seat will seldom be appeased with any other substitute.

The indoor living-room is beginning to give place in larger country houses to a simple drawing-room, and in the smaller ones to the small reception-room. These rooms are furnished very differently than their city prototypes and fulfil a vital function - that of cool and refreshing hospitality. The best results are obtained through a restrained selection of furnishings and a simple and naive use of color.

Of the furniture may be decorated with small conventionalized designs, the stencils for which can be purchased in an art store, or just a plain band of a contrasting color stenciled on.

The details should be worked out carefully. The shades for bulbs over dressing tables, or the shades for side-brackets and candles afford the opportunity for daring and often wonderfully good results.

We cannot drop the subject of bedrooms without considering the sleeping porch, that important adjunct of the country house. The old sleeping porches used to resemble the contagious wards of a sanitarium, with their white iron cots and sparse furnishings. To-day many of them are as fully equipped as an indoor bedroom or outdoor living-room.

The modern ones are enclosed in glass. They are located, whenever possible, on the shady side of the house. By using couch hammocks instead of beds, or concealing the small iron cots behind a screen, they may be made to serve both as sleeping porches and morning living-room. One unusually attractive porch put to this service had violet striped awnings and white couch hammocks with violet denim upholstery. There were two white wicker stands with violet cretonne covered boxes which served as bureaus, and above them hung little oval mirrors framed in puffs of the cretonne. The framework of the windows, which were arranged to slide back and forth and protect the porch from wind and weather, was painted gray and there were violet rugs on the floor. The furnishings also included a white wicker sewing stand, a large white wicker chair upholstered in violet and with deep pockets for books, a white wooden bench, and three small white chairs decorated with a violet motif copied from the cretonne.

One important point of the country house usually overlooked is some provision for lighting in summer. When sitting indoors or on the veranda on a hot summer night, gas or electric light attracts insects and is heating. It is much pleasanter to have a low flickering glow lighting up people's faces or shedding its subdued light through the windows. Utter darkness is not conducive to alertness and yet many people choose it rather than the evils of gas or electricity.

Candles are always a good summer illuminator, and there should be plenty of candlesticks in convenient places. Another excellent method is the use of night-lights in glass bowls set on little teakwood stands. Covered with rice paper shades or left without, they will be found to shed a pleasant glow, very grateful on a warm summer night.