article having its own specially planned shelf or receptacle.  The closets are painted in gay colors inside, and the shelves are fitted with thin perfumed pads.  They are often further decorated with bright lines of color, which is always amusing to the woman who opens a door.  Hat stands and bags are covered with the same chintzes employed in the dressing-room proper.  Certain of the closets are fitted with the English tray shelves, and each tray has its sachet.  The hangers for gowns are covered in the chintz or brocade used on the hat stands.  This makes an effective ensemble whether brocades or printed cottons are used, if the arrangement is orderly and full of gay color.

[Illustration:  MISS MARBURY’S CHINTZ-HUNG DRESSING-TABLE]

One of the most successful gown closets I have done is a long narrow closet with a door at each end, really a passageway between a bedroom and a boudoir.  Long poles run the length of the closet, with curtains that enclose a passage from door to door.  Back of these curtains are long poles that may be raised or lowered by pulleys.  Each gown is placed on its padded hanger, covered with its muslin bag, and hung on the pole.  The pole is then drawn up so that the tails of the gowns will not touch the dust of the floor.  This is a most orderly arrangement for the woman of many gowns.

The straightaway bathroom that one finds in apartments and small houses is difficult to make beautiful, but may be made airy and clean-looking, which is more important.  I had to make such a bathroom a little more attractive recently, and it was a very pleasant job.  I covered the walls with a waterproof stuff of white, figured with a small black polkadot.  The woodwork and the ceiling were painted white.  All around the door and window frames I used a two-inch border of ivy leaves, also of waterproof paper, and although I usually abominate borders I loved this one.  A plain white framed mirror was also painted with green ivy leaves, and a glass shelf above the wash bowl was fitted with glass bottles and dishes with labels and lines of clear green.  White muslin curtains were hung at the window, and a small white stool was given a cushion covered with green and white ivy patterned chintz.  The floor was painted white, and a solid green rug was used.  The towels were cross-stitched with the name of the owner in the same bright green.  The room, when finished, was cool and refreshing, and had cost very little in money, and not so very much in time and labor.

I think that in country houses where there is not a bathroom with each bedroom there should be a very good washstand provided for each guest.  When a house party is in progress, for instance, and every one comes in from tennis or golf or what not, eager for a bath and fresh clothes, washstands are most convenient.  Why shouldn’t a washstand be just as attractively furnished as a dressing-table?  Just because they have been so ugly we condemn them