After all, for simple American houses there is nothing better than a straightaway staircase of broad and easy treads, with one or two landings.  There may be a broad landing with a window and window-seat, if there is a real view, but the landing-seat that is built for no especial purpose is worse than useless.  It is not at all necessary to have the stairs carpeted, if the treads are broad enough, and turned balusters painted white with a mahogany hand rail are in scheme.  Such a staircase adds much to the home-quality of a house.

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THE DRAWING-ROOM

A drawing-room is the logical place for the elegancies of family life.  The ideal drawing-room, to my mind, contains many comfortable chairs and sofas, many softly shaded lights by night, and plenty of sunshine by day, well-balanced mirrors set in simple paneled walls, and any number of small tables that may be brought out into the room if need be, and an open fire.

The old idea of the drawing-room was a horrible apartment of stiffness and formality and discomfort.  No wonder it was used only for weddings and funerals!  The modern drawing-room is intended, primarily, as a place where a hostess may entertain her friends, and it must not be chill and uninviting, whatever else it may be.  It should not be littered up with personal things—­magazines, books and work-baskets and objects that belong in the living-room—­but it welcomes flowers and objets d’art, collections of fans, or miniatures, or graceful mirrors, or old French prints, or enamels, or porcelains.  It should be a place where people may converse without interruption from the children.

Most houses, even of the smaller sort, have three day rooms—­the dining-room, the parlor and the sitting-room, as they are usually called.  People who appreciate more and more the joy of living have pulled hall and sitting-room together into one great family meeting place, leaving a small vestibule, decreased the size of the dining-room and built in many windows, so that it becomes almost an outdoor room, and given the parlor a little more dignity and serenity and its right name—­the drawing-room.

We use the terms drawing-room and salon interchangeably in America—­though we are a bit more timid of the salon—­but there is a subtle difference between the two that is worth noting.  The withdrawing room of old England was the quiet room to which the ladies retired, leaving their lords to the freer pleasures of the great hall.  Indeed, the room began as a part of my lady’s bedroom, but gradually came into its proper importance and took on a magnificence all its own.  The salon of France also began as a part of the great hall, or grande salle.  Then came the need for an apartment for receiving and so the great bed chamber was divided into two parts, one a real sleeping-room and the other a chambre de parade, with a great