into closets, one to be used as a hanging place for the various brooms, brushes, dustpans, and dusters in use about the house.  Brooms, by the way, must never be allowed to stand upon their bristles, but must either stand upside down or hang.  Another nook becomes a convenient place for hanging canvas or ticking bags filled with odds and ends of dress goods, white and colored, news and wrapping papers, balls of twine, and other pick-me-ups.

THE CHINA CLOSET

The china closet is designed for the accommodation of everything in use on the dining table, with drawers or cupboards for linen and silver, and shelves for dishes.  The latter should be arranged with an eye to artistic effect as well as to convenience, platters and decorative plates standing on edge and kept from slipping by a strip of molding nailed to the shelf, pretty cups hanging, and those of more common material and design inverted to keep out the dust.  Stand the large and heavy pieces, vegetable dishes, and piles of plates on the bottom shelf, and on the next cups and saucers, sauce dishes, small plates, etc., placing the smaller dishes in front, the taller ones behind.  The third shelf may be devoted to glass alone, with tumblers inverted and bowls and odd pieces tastefully arranged, or to both glass and silver.  On the fourth shelf place such pieces of glass and silver as are only occasionally brought into service.  Personal taste and convenience dictate to a great extent the placing of the dishes, but absolute neatness and spotlessness must hold sway.  No other closet is more prone to disarrangement than the china closet, where the careless disposal of one dish seems to invite the general disorder which is sure to follow.  For this reason it demands the frequent rearranging which it should receive.  Its walls should harmonize in color with those of the dining room.  Small, fringed napkins or doilies on and overhanging the shelves help to impart an air of daintiness and make a pretty setting for the dishes.  When the china closet does not connect with the dining room, but is a “thing apart,” its shelves may receive the same treatment accorded those in the pantry—­white paper or oilcloth covering and valance.

While well-filled linen and china closets appeal to the aesthetic side of the housewife, clothes closets speak directly to her common-sense, managerial side.  If she had a say-so in the matter, their name would be Legion, but she must not think over-hardly of the few she has, for they are invaluable developers of her genius for putting “infinite riches in a little room”; while the constant tussle in their depths with moth and dust induces a daily enlargement of her moral biceps—­and her patience.  May their shadow never grow less (perish the thought!).

CLOSET TIGHTNESS