olour of
the table-cover may be a test of artistic taste, and may make or mar
the whole effect of the furnishings of the room, especially if it is
newly acquired, in order to enliven the fading glories of ancestral
taste.

The Screen.--This evidently began its existence as a curtain hung on a
movable frame for the purpose of dividing large chambers for separate
uses.[469] The Chinese seem to have been the first to stretch the
curtain tight over the frame, making it a fixture, and often an actual
partition, painted with pictures by brush or needle.

To our modern home, the screen in a large room, gives a sense of
snugness, and is an actual necessity for keeping off the draughts
drifting in through ill-fitting window-frames and doors; and at the
same time serving aesthetically as a background to high chairs and
tables heaped with objects of art, and tall vases of flowers. The
high screen groups and unites the pictures of active and still life
around it; and meanwhile the little fire-screens are performing the
merciful service of saving the complexions of our daughters from being
sacrificed to Moloch in front of our scorching coal fires. I need not
recommend these as fit surfaces for embroidery--they offer themselves
to it; and the School of Art Needlework is a living witness to how
much they are appreciated and how largely employed. On the screen,
decorative ambition is permitted to rise to pictorial art. Nothing in
furniture is prettier than the screen covered with refined needle
painting, either arabesqued or naturalistic. You may vary the designs
to any extent, either as large pictures covering many folds, or in
small pictures repeated or varied on each. Here design to
individualize the living-room comes into play, and is most conspicuous
for good or for evil effect.

Amongst the occasional furnishings of the home, we would instance
embroidered curtains to veil pictures, which are perhaps too sacred to
expose to the general eye. We know how often in churches and
sacristies on the Continent, one, or even two veils have to be
withdrawn before the holy and precious picture is displayed. We have
seen these little curtains beautifully worked so as to form by their
design a picture in the space they cover. Crimson silk is perhaps
worked in gold and colours for a gilt frame, and white and silver
within ebony or walnut settings. I would recommend this style of work
to the consideration of our decorators. It is interesting