The variety and number of articles on a dressing-table are subject to the same two laws:  that is, every article must be useful and in line and colour accord with the deliberate scheme of your room, and there must be no crowding nor disorder, no matter how rare or beautiful the toilet articles are.

CHAPTER X

TREATMENT OF WORK TABLES, BIRD CAGES, DOG BASKETS AND FISH GLOBES

Every bedroom planned for a woman, young or old, calls for a work table, work basket or work bag, or all three, and these furnish opportunities for additional “flowers” in your room; for we insist upon regarding accessories as opportunities for extra colour notes which harmonise with the main colour scheme and enliven your interior quite as flowers would, cheering it up—­and, incidentally, its inmates!  Apropos of this, it was only the other day that some one remarked in our hearing, “This room is so blooming with lovely bits of colour in lamp shades, pillows, and objets d’art, that I no longer spend money on cut flowers.”  There we have it!  Precisely the idea we are trying to express.  So make your work-table, if you own the sort with a silk work-bag suspended from the lower part, your work-basket or work-bag, represent one, two or three of the colours in your room.

If some one gives you an inharmonious work-bag, either build a room up to it, or give it away, but never hang it out in a room done in an altogether different colour scheme.

Bird-cages, dog-baskets and fish-globes may become harmonious instead of jarring colour notes, if one will give a little thought to the matter.  In fact some of the black iron wrought cages when occupied by a wonderful parrot with feathers of blue and orange, red and grey, or red, blue and yellow, can be the making of certain rooms.  And there are canaries with deep orange feathers which look most decorative in cages painted dark green, as well as the many-coloured paroquet, lovely behind golden bars.

Many a woman when selecting a dog has bought one which harmonised with her costume, or got a costume to set off her dog!  Certainly a dark or light brindle bull is a perfect addition to a room done in browns, as is a red Chow or a tortoise-shell cat.

See to it that cage and basket set off your bird, dog or cat; but don’t let them become too conspicuous notes of colour in your room or on your porch; let it be the bird, the dog or the cat which has a colour value.

The fish-globe can be of white or any colour glass you prefer, and your fish vivid or pale in tone; whichever it is, be sure that they furnish a needed—­not a superfluous—­tone of colour in a room or on a porch.

PLATE XIV

Shows narrow hall in an old country house, thought impossible as to appearance, but made charming by “pushing out” the wall with an antique painted tapestry and keeping all woodwork and carpets the same delicate dove grey.

[Illustration:  A Narrow Hall Where Effect of Width Is Attained by Use of Tapestry with Vista]