ng stuff, or one of the $4.50
green wooden settles, sold to artists, would serve. A number of
cushions placed on the seat against the piano add to the coziness and
grace of the decoration.

Lighting.

Rooms should be lighted from the sides, if possible. The great central
chandeliers, casting their downward shadows, age every face in the
room by emphasizing every line, and bringing out every defect sharply.

Decorating.

In decorating a room a harmony of the shades of one color should be
used. Beware of spotty effects. It should really, according to Edmond
Russell, "be conceived, as a piece of music is, in a certain key.
There should be sympathy and harmony. Even the pictures should be
chosen with as much regard to their surroundings as to their
individual merits."

Another important item in the decoration of the home is considering
the choice of ground tones with reference to the complexion of its
hostess. Guests appear there but casually. She is always there, and no
one should elect to occupy a room, whose color tones either totally
efface what little color one may possess, or else, by an exaggeration
of natural ruddiness, be made a rival of the setting sun.

The effect of color upon the appearance is so important that every
change of color, changes not only the color of the skin, but that of
the hair and eyes as well.

Edmond Russell once studied a room with reference to complexions,
mixing his paints to a relative hue with the general tone of
complexions, making it duller and grayer, so that standing near it the
skin looked clear and fresh beside it.

"I made the tone," he said, "a little greener and colder than flesh,
so that one looked lighter and warmer and was enriched by the
contrast. Any who stood in front of that wall looked five or ten years
younger than they were."

In using a flower, or other design, for a frieze or dado, they should
be conventionalized. This term is used to signify the modification of
a real object with its surroundings. The more formal they are the
better; no attempt at shading or perspective is necessary, and the
square and compass should be used as much as possible in their
designing.

In decorating a room, a dark floor is the beginning, and the walls
grow lighter as the ceiling is approached. The richest effects should
be congregated at the mantel, with the fire as its central object.

"The ability to combine is a rare one." Ruskin writes truly that, "one
rarely mee