our-tenacity and flexibility. If one adopts woollen curtains
and portieres, constant "vigilance is the price of safety," and
considering that vigilance is required everywhere and at all times in
the household, it is best to reduce the quantity whenever it is
possible.

This throws us back upon cottons and linens for inexpensive hangings,
and in all the thousand forms in which these two fibres are manufactured
it would seem easy to choose those which are beautiful, durable, and
appropriate. But here we are met at the very threshold of choice with
the two undesirable qualities of fugitive colour, and stiffness of
texture. Something in the nature of cotton makes it inhospitable to
dyes. If it receives them it is with a protest, and an evident intention
of casting them out at the earliest opportunity--it makes, it is true,
one or two exceptions. It welcomes indigo dye and will never quite
relinquish its companionship; once received, it will carry its colours
through all its serviceable life, and when it is finally ready to fall
into dust, it is still loyally coloured by its influence. If it is
cheated, as we ourselves are apt to be, into accepting spurious indigo,
made up of chemical preparations, it speedily discovers the cheat and
refuses its colouring. Perhaps this sympathy is due to a vegetable
kinship and likeness of experience, for where cotton will grow, indigo
will also flourish.

In printed cottons or chintzes, there is a reasonable amount of fidelity
to colour, and if chintz curtains are well chosen, and lined to protect
them from the sun, their attractiveness bears a fair proportion to their
durability.

An interlining of some strong and tried colour will give a very soft and
subtle daylight effect in a room, but this is, of course, lost in the
evening. The expedient of an under colour in curtain linings will
sometimes give delightful results in plain or unprinted goods, and
sometimes a lining with a strong and bold design will produce a charming
shadow effect upon a tinted surface--of course each new experiment must
be tried before one can be certain of its effect, and, in fact, there is
rather an exciting uncertainty as to results. Yet there are infinite
possibilities to the householder who has what is called the artistic
instinct and the leisure and willingness to experiment, and experiments
need not be limited to prints or to cottons, for wonderful combinations
of colour are possible in silks where light i