Logically, my "friendly fireplace," as G------calls it, ought to be in the centre of the room; but in reality it's infinitely more effective where it is. The shelf is high and white and narrow, and the blue Staffordshire plates above it are hung there for precisely the same reason that "Old Hickory's" dish decorates the study - because the Dispensers of my Destiny would n't let me tear down the old stove-holes. Well, they serve another purpose, too: they echo the color of the china ranged on my mantel. First, there's my old Nankin teapot; next, a "sugar-box" (Stevenson, I think), so charmingly pastoral in design, - a shepherd with a lute is tending his flock, - that I call it Theocritus in blue, and love it more every time I look at it. And then comes a small Wedgwood sugar-bowl, a gift from an old Long Island house, and, under the clock, a Shepherd cup; then, the companion Wedgwood teapot, the same grapevine pattern, and an indigo-hued Enoch Wood bowl. But none of them compare with the Bristol piece at the end of the mantel-shelf; the dreaming potter who made that so long ago must have remembered all the loveliest blue things in the world he knew: larkspurs and the curve of a hot June sky above them, and the distant harbor, where all the Spanish ships came in.

But, after all, it is my amber glass candlesticks that are my particular jewels. They are dolphins, which obligingly balance the sockets upon curved tails; their height is a full ten inches, and their modest worth of six years ago has increased by leaps and bounds, until the last New York price that I heard quoted was sixty-five dollars. Frankly, they cost me just four and a half, and are one of the best arguments I know for buying before a collecting fashion becomes general. They are, however, very attractive, and their quaint charm and rarity, plus the magic name of Sandwich, - for that is where they were made in the early nineteenth century, - has raised their value out of all probability.

The mantel-clock is an heirloom, made at Bristol, Connecticut, by E. & G. W. Bartholomew. I wish the photograph showed even the least details more perfectly, for it is the best clock of the type that I know - a mingling of two styles of Empire decoration: carving and stenciling. At the top are carved pineapples, symbols of hospitality; the decoration in between is stenciled in gold, dulled by time, but very lovely; the design, a heaped basket of fruit. The pillars are gold-stenciled, too, but with a formalized acanthus-leaf motif, and the feet are the carved lion's claws. The dial is charming: white with delicate gold spandrels and figures; and the picture below shows a dignified Georgian house set on the banks of a placid stream; it always reminds me of one of those stately James River mansions. Altogether it is such a clock as one prays for but seldom gets.

You will notice that I have a number of old skimmers and ladles, - brass, copper, and pewter, - hanging there; a warming pan, a waffle iron (that's unusual), a corn popper, and a variety of pots and pans and griddles. (I have even an ancient bootjack, which the children find an immense help in taking off rubber boots.) All these oddments I picked up at various times and places through the countryside, for mere snatches of songs, really nothing at all. The kettle is my wood-box in winter, and in summer I fill it with yellow flowers, the largess of my old-time garden, for the color-feeling of this room is gold, as that of my parlour is rose. As for my firedogs, they 're frankly iron, and crude; made, I imagine, by some village blacksmith. I got two pairs at an auction for something under three dollars, and, while they are not so beautiful as brass, they are infinitely less trouble, and quite as appropriate for an eighteenth-century cottage. Sometimes - in heavy winter weather - I use both pairs. Do you think me absurd and whimsical? I assure you I'm not. You see, I very much dislike ugly and unsuitable fire-screens, and the four andirons are actually four alert watchdogs for blazing rolling logs, and really form an excellent fire-protection.

All this time you have been standing on one of my "drawn-in" rugs, one of my bargains, too, for I bought it from a small dealer who was eloquent in his persuasive arguments not to buy "that old thing," but to take instead a hideous, staring rug, with a design of sportive green and red kittens romping with a ball against a black background. Well, that was ten dollars and my rug was three; but had the prices been reversed, my choice would have remained the same, my color-sense (or perhaps the lack of it) being a North Country wonder and despair. When I got it home, I realized what a prize I had found: the pattern is lovely and personal, by which I mean that the woman who made it went to her own mind for inspiration, instead of working one of those stereotyped "boughten" designs, which so many of them unfortunately use. The color is brown for the most part, with a cream centre adorned with formal red roses and bluebell sprays; and roses with gray-green leaves ornament the corners. The work is very fine and close-clipped, and the foundation is not burlap but old homespun linen - a very rare happening, indeed, and an indication of decided age.

As you stand by my fireplace and glance around, you will see that my furniture is of one period and type - an essential of a dining-room, to my way of thinking. It is plain Empire; not so gracefully beautiful as Hepplewhite or Sheraton, but dignified, simple, and suited to my "middling house." It is, also, much less expensive than either of the other styles. The necessary things - by which I mean chairs, table, sideboard, and secretary - cost just a hundred and forty-one dollars. When you add my curtains, the price runs up to nineteen dollars and eighty cents more; while everything together - and this includes my Staffordshire china, my pressed-glass candlesticks, my Stiegel flip-mug, my pewter, brass, and copper, my rugs and wheel-tray and lamps - amounts to two hundred and fifty dollars and eight cents. Often you pay more than that for a wretched reproduction, a period suite, "William and Mary in the popular Jacobean finish."