And now that I have made the bed visible to you, described its outward signs, let me tell you of its inwardness, the effect its spiritual qualities have on various people. B------ insists that I receive my friends a la ruelle like Madame de Rambouillet; anything else is unworthily inconsistent, she declares; and really, the feeling of the bed is so stately that my room becomes a chambre de parade as well as a chambre de gite. To me it always seems like an old lady who, choosing to live simply, is grande dame none the less. And a small girl of my acquaintance says that it reminds her of the bed where Hop-o'-My-Thumb found the Ogre's seven daughters asleep. There, you have it from three angles!

Maybe you will think my homespun rugs unworthy of companionship with my fine-lady bed. Two are braided, two are "drawn in," one is knitted and crocheted, and all have just the right colors to look well upon my happy floor: blues and yellows and browns and firm touches of black. Four are old, picked up through the countryside and at small dealers', and the new one was made for me by a skillful rug-woman who understands the almost forgotten art of vegetable dyes, and who possesses a fine naive sense of design. I feel frugal whenever I look at it; it contains all the devastated stockings that I hated to darn and hated to throw away. If I were you I'd begin to save all of mine this very minute; it's an infinitely better use than making cleaning-cloths of them.

Yes, my rugs may be homespun, but, just on that account, they better comport with my blue Chariot-Wheel coverlet, and anything finer than this woven web would be quite out of place on my old Pennsylvania Dutch day-bed. I am very fond of this artless oak-and-maple piece; it has a sort of homely dignity; it is, to my way of thinking, very much like the simple, sturdy folk of that region. Finding it was one of my rewards for going last June to Manheim, to the Feast of Roses held in loving memory of Baron Stiegel; the other was the joy of taking part in one of the few really romantic festivals America can boast. "In the month of June, yearly, forever hereafter, the Rent of One Red Rose if the same be lawfully demanded." A poet as well as a glass-maker wrote that!

Have you a moment to spare for the silhouettes which hang just above the day-bed? Two of them, the mother and daughter in the dress of the middle eighteen-thirties, are Austrian, and belong to that rarest type which is not only cut, but indented, in a most interesting way, so that features, ornaments, and even wrinkles are indicated. They are the only profiles I know that reveal the actual lines of age. Their setting is very effective; mounted on azure paper, and framed so that they are recessed, these women might be looking out into the dusk of some blue Danube night. The upper silhouette is a photographic shade of the Littlest Daughter, a method I commend to your attention in case family-photographs seem to you, as they do to me, over-modern for old walls.

The coverlet color is just a little darker shade of the same blue that is in my curtains. These are made of simple Tussore silk, looped back by gilt bands made in the shape of acanthus leaves. Perhaps these bands are a little later in period than the rest of my room, although Sheraton's second book does show a similar draping; moreover, the bonne femme type of curtain, used in several of my other rooms, hardly suited the proud bearing of this chamber. And ordinarily I do not care for glass-curtains; but, in a ground-floor bedroom, they are highly essential, especially when a bronze tablet, interesting to the passing tourist, is placed next the right-hand window. Still, my dotted voile is so sheer that it becomes merely the veil of privacy, and shuts out no necessary light or air.

There is a fainter shade of blue, indeed almost cerulean, in the strip of old challis which lies on the top of my tall, six-drawered chest. I put it there for two reasons: first, because the top of such a chest is rarely so well finished as the rest of the piece; secondly, because the "Tree of Life" design, in saffron and cream and subtle greens, wandering across that gentle blue, is one of the loveliest blendings of color I have ever beheld. I have no doubt at all of its being some Oriental fabric brought to this country years and years ago. I found it in the old farmhouse where I bought my little stenciled stool and my three-dollar coverlet. It was lying in one of the drawers of an old chest very much like mine (though, thank Heaven, I have nothing like the two framed coffin plates which hung above it!), and the chest the farmer did not want to sell, albeit we were welcome to anything that it held. This charming strip became mine for twenty-five cents; I bought it without any definite idea of use - just because it was attractive. And behold my reward!

The maple chest is fifty-four inches high, straight-lined and ample, and the oval brasses show that interesting oakleaf-and-acorn pattern. At the top is a small shaving-glass which came to me all the way from Seattle; not at all elaborate, - two little drawers with two little glass knobs, - but adapted to this room because of its squarish effect.

My table does curve a little; still, not too much to be incongruous; and its delicate marquetry and straight, tapering legs, banded with little lines of holly, mark it as belonging to the Hepplewhite school. It is, strictly speaking, a card-table, but I use it as a place to write. Indeed, I am using it even now, writing these very words on an inconsistent machine when I should be employing one of my old quill pens. My other belongings, however, are most accordant: an olive-green Stoddard glass ink-bottle, so dark as to be almost black; and, for a paper weight, a heavy lump of crude Stiegel glass, blue as a sapphire, purple as the western ocean. My old, plain-featured doll sits in an older chair, and since she has known many generations she is my wise counselor as to bygone days and customs. Did you ever think how much a doll has a chance to hear when nobody knows she is listening?

I love my blue-and-yellow room, but when I love it most I scarcely know: at high noon in August its cool tranquillity is like a soothing hand; it delights me to waken very early on May mornings, and hear the birds, and watch the first sunlight just fingering the heavy green shutters; and, those same shutters closed tight on winter nights, I love to lie secure in my tall bed, and read, and admire the firelight, trimming my room. Perhaps my candid chamber is to me as the old song was to that long-dead King of Spain, who heard it night after night with happiness, and rewarded the singer with "a dukedom and wealth beyond the dreams of avarice." I know I shall never tire of it: it is something like a dream come true!