[Illustration:  THE FINE FORMALITY OF WELL-PLACED PANELING]

There is a great difference in opinion as to the placing of the piano in the drawing-room.  I think it belongs in the living-room, if it is in constant use, though of course it is very convenient to have it near by the one big room, be it drawing-room or dining-room, when a small dance is planned.  I am going to admit that in my opinion there is nothing more abused than the piano, I have no piano in my own house in New York.  I love music—­but I am not a musician, and so I do not expose myself to the merciless banging of chance callers.  Besides, my house is quite small and a good piano would dwarf the other furnishings of my rooms.  I think pianos are for musicians, not strummers, who spoil all chance for any real conversation.  If you are fortunate enough to have a musician in your family, that is different.  Go ahead and give him a music room.  Musicians are not born every day, but lovers of music are everywhere, and I for one am heartily in favor of doing away with the old custom of teaching every child to bang a little, and instead, teaching him to listen to music.  Oh, the crimes that are committed against music in American parlors!  I prefer the good mechanical cabinet that offers us “canned” music to the manual exercise of people who insist on playing wherever they see an open piano.  Of course the mechanical instrument is new, and therefore, subject to much criticism from a decorative standpoint, but the music is much better than the amateur’s.  We are still turning up our noses a little at the mechanical piano players, but if we will use our common sense we must admit that a new order of things has come to pass, and the new “canned” music is not to be despised.  Certainly if the instrument displeases you, you can say so, but if a misguided friend elects to strum on your piano you are helpless.  So I have no piano in my New York house.  I have a cabinet of “canned” music that can be turned on for small dances when need be, and that can be hidden in a closet between times.  Why not?

But suppose you have a piano, or need one:  do give it a chance!  Its very size makes it tremendously important, and if you load it with senseless fringed scarfs and bric-a-brac you make it the ugliest thing in your room.  Give it the best place possible, against an inside wall, preferably.  I saw a new house lately where the placing of the piano had been considered by the architect when the house was planned.  There was a mezzanine floor overhanging the great living-room, and one end of this had been made into a piano alcove, a sort of modern minstrel gallery.  The musician who used the piano was very happy, for your real musician loves a certain solitude, and those of us who listened to his music in the great room below were happy because the maker of the music was far enough away from us.  We could appreciate the music and forget the mechanics of it.  For a concert, or a small dance, this balcony music-room would be most convenient.  Another good place for the piano is a sort of alcove, or small room opening from the large living or drawing-room, where the piano and a few chairs may be placed.  Of course if you are to have a real music-room, then there are great possibilities.