One of the chief objections to the charming fabric was that people felt it would become soiled easily, and would often have to be renewed, but in our vacuum-cleaned houses we no longer feel that it is necessary to have furniture and hangings that will “conceal dirt.”  We refuse to have dirt!  Of course, chintzes in rooms that will have hard wear should be carefully selected.  They should be printed on linen, or some hard twilled fabric, and the ground color should be darker than when they are to be used in bedrooms.  Many of the newer chintzes have dark grounds of blue, mauve, maroon or gray, and a still more recent chintz has a black ground with fantastic designs of the most delightful colorings.  The black chintzes are reproductions of fabrics that were in vogue in 1830.  They are very good in rooms that must be used a great deal, and they are very decorative.  Some of them suggest old cut velvets—­they are so soft and lustrous.

My greatest difficulty in introducing chintzes here was to convert women who loved their plush and satin draperies to a simpler fabric.  They were unwilling to give up the glories they knew for the charms they knew not.  I convinced them by showing them results!  My first large commission was the Colony Club, and I used chintzes throughout the Club:  Chintzes of cool grapes and leaves in the roof garden, hand-blocked linens of many soft colors in the reading-room, rose-sprigged and English posy designs in the bedrooms, and so on throughout the building.

Now I am using more chintz than anything else.  It is as much at home in the New York drawing-room as in the country cottage.  I can think of nothing more charming for a room in a country house than a sitting-room furnished with gray painted furniture and a lovely chintz.

[Illustration:  STRAIGHT HANGINGS OF ROSE AND YELLOW SHOT SILK]

Not long ago I was asked to furnish a small sea-shore cottage.  The whole thing had to be done in a month, and the only plan I had to work on was a batch of chintz samples that had been selected for the house.  I extracted the colorings of walls, woodwork, furniture, etc., from these chintzes.  Instead of buying new furniture I dragged down a lot of old things that had been relegated to the attic and painted them with a dull ground color and small designs adapted from the chintzes.  The lighting fixtures, wall brackets, candle sticks, etc.—­were of carved wood, painted in polychrome to match the general scheme.  One chintz in particular I would like to have every woman see and enjoy.  It had a ground of old blue, patterned regularly with little Persian “pears,” the old rug design, you know.  The effect of this simple chintz with white painted walls and furniture and woodwork and crisp white muslin glass curtains was delicious.

The most satisfactory of all chintzes is the Toile de Jouy.  The designs are interesting and well drawn, and very much more decorative than the designs one finds in ordinary silks and other materials.  The chintzes must be appropriate to the uses of the room, well designed, in scale with the height of the ceilings, and so forth.  It is well to remember that self-color rugs are most effective in chintz rooms.  Wilton rugs woven in carpet sizes are to be had now at all first class furniture stores.