Before a final adjustment, it is always advisable to try fabrics in the room in which they are to be used. The precise tone that will admirably suit one room may not answer in another. But the trial should not be made in the raw light of an unfurnished and unshaded room, for this will be no criterion. The pieces of furniture should be placed in position and the windows be provided with shades or curtains, or preferably both. Shades or Venetian blinds should generally be employed to avoid a garish light at the top of the room. The best shades are those of heavy weight, greyish or cream-white within and dark on the outside. Venetian blinds admit air while shutting out an excess of light and are in their appearance very attractive. They may be painted any colour desired in order to agree with the general colour-scheme.

If certain colourings harmonious in themselves do not "become" a room, it may possibly be because its shape forbids a proper arrangement, but it is much more likely to be due to its quality of light, and if this is the case the defect may be remedied by proper draperies at the windows. A cold, hard light will be warmed and softened by sash-curtains of pongee, or buff, or rose silk or gauze. If the room is dull and lacks sunlight, golden yellow or orange will entirely change its effect.

It is also very necessary to judge colouring under the artificial light actually to be employed; i.e. with the shaded side-lights or lamp selected for the room. This lighting may similarly be modified. Silk lamp-shades of the rose tones should be lined with a shell or deeper pink, except when used for reading and other work, when the lining should be white and a rose hue used for interlining. Champagne and buff shades naturally should have linings on the same tones, or if heavy or closely shirred may need no lining. Shades of plain blue or green should not be employed, though these colours may enter into their decoration. They give a cold, unbecoming light. It might be possible to change this by the use of deep rose interlining, but it is usually simpler to choose another colouring for the shade.

No better advice could be given than to consider the result of what one is about to do before doing it. In other words, attempt to visualise the effect. A simple example will make this clear. Suppose a room having many doors and windows and little unbroken wall-space. Now if the openings are few, the general counsel is to have door- and window-hangings the same, or the same prevailing colour; but, if they are many and a like drapery were used for all consider the result! The room would irremediably be cut up by these masses of colour here, there, and everywhere, and all the same colour. If one hue is employed throughout, in such a case it should be light and present no great contrast to the walls. Otherwise, the door-hangings may be of strong hues and the windows kept light, though not necessarily colourless; striped taffeta silks are one of the resources in such instances.

Balance of colour was considered in the section on that subject. Naturally the strong hues should not all be on one side of the room. The principal colours employed should also be carried elsewhere in the smaller articles of furnishing.

It was mentioned that the subsidiary objects necessary to our daily lives are many - we should see to it that they are necessary, or at least advisable, and that they do not become too many. There is a smartness and wholesomeness in crisp, clean, spacious furnishing; and this is destroyed by overloading, either with a multiplicity of objects or with too much pattern.

Everything brought into the home should in itself be beautiful, however simple and plain: in furnishing, ugliness is a crime and vulgarity to be avoided as poison. Why bring a tawdry, abominably coloured fan with an advertisement upon it into the abode to which one has given much thought when really charming Japanese fans may be bought for twenty-five cents or a shilling? Visit an oriental shop and see what loving care the Japanese lavish upon the tiniest objects. Compare their scenic postal-cards with our own vulgar atrocities. Consider their simple interiors, ornamented with but a few charming decorative features at a time - others being put away to be brought out in their turn. See the lovely effect they gain by one flower in a narrow-necked receptacle, while the western ideal of decoration is too often evinced by a "fancy" bowl heaped with incongruous hues! But we are civilised!

Many of our men seem to consider it unmanly to be anything else than uncouth, or at least careless, in their attire and their surroundings, while their women overdress (or underdress) and heap their dressing-tables with silver and cut glass. The charm of a few choice articles and quaint or unusual vials does not seem to have entered their minds; though such things as the latter and old decorated bottles may be picked up at antique shops for much less than they spent upon the atrocities.

An exercise of taste, judgment and common-sense will enable us to provide suitable and beautiful accessories.

To begin with the man - the helpless man. What shall he put on the bureau of his room? He needs hair-brushes - a pair of good military brushes with backs of mahogany, ebony, or other wood agreeable to his furniture. Place these at the back and between them a lacquered Japanese or leather-covered box, perhaps 6 inches long, to hold scarf pins, collar-buttons and such little things. He may think it useless, but if he is not careful he will soon find it full of those "little things." Off to one side may be a clothes- or hat-brush and a hand-glass backed to match the hair brushes. He will have a comb, a pair of scissors, and, though he may not care for a manicure set, a nail file, polisher and curved scissors. These may go in a tray in front of the box, and that tray may be of metal, not offensively ornamented, or a flat Japanese porcelain tray with figures, or a scene. The box and tray should naturally agree with the room. A pin-tray may be an odd pewter or brass affair, or a little quaint bowl. This is about all the plain man needs and, if these be manlike and tasteful, his bureau-top will look well. He may add a pair of good candlesticks, or a single one off in one corner. This might be of Japanese or other pottery in dark green and cream with a bayberry candle. A scarf of grey linen or hemstitched white with a simple initial, to fit the top of the bureau, will be best. There will be nothing effeminate or beneath his dignity in such surroundings. The man of taste and culture needs no hints about these matters - his difficulty will be to avoid buying beautiful accessories for which he has no place.