t does not interfere with any graceful drapery that may be arranged
at the door. It is decidedly useful, convenient and gives a certain
touch of the unusual to the room.

An Improvised Bookcase.

A superfluous doorway or window too often mars the effect of a room,
and the present day architecture, as found in cheap apartments and
houses, frequently abounds in this sort of generosity.

To surmount the difficulty a very useful inclosure can be constructed
by placing two uprights and a few shelves within the door jamb, or
against it, as the case may be. Staining or painting them to match the
rest of the woodwork is a small matter, while arranging brass rods and
pretty curtains is not much more.

Screens.

Screens are a necessary object of household adornment. It is not
requisite that they should be expensive, but the uses to which they
can be put are legion. A plain frame of hard wood, or pine stained,
rectangular, three or four inches wide and one inch thick, furnished
with feet, and with or without castors, is all that is necessary.
Covering may be done with a great variety of materials, cheap or dear.
Ornamentation may be applied, embroidered, sketched, outlined, or
painted. If the screen is made in two or three parts to fold like
clothes bars, feet will not be necessary.

A rustic fire-screen is a unique affair, handsome and useful where
there are open fires, as a shield from heat in cold weather, and as a
screen for the emptiness of grate or fireplace during the summer. It
is formed from natural branches, two straight and two crotched ones,
from which all the smaller branches and twigs have been cut away so as
to have but little more than protruding knots. When these are well
seasoned, rub, brush and rebrush, both with a soft brush and a stiff
one, to remove from every crevice in the bark every loose particle of
moss and dust. Then, with liquid gold, gild the bark all over, or, if
preferred, gild only the bare wood where it is exposed at the ends and
where the limbs are cut off, and give a touch of gold to every crack
or protuberance, or, if a smoother finish is desired, remove all of
the bark and smoothly gild or enamel the whole surface.

The screen, suspended from the upper crosspiece, is a fringed silk rug
woven on a hand loom, as old-fashioned carpets were woven. It falls
freely from the top, its own weight keeping it in place, but it might
be tied to the standards--half way down and at the upper corn