sion for the inmates is the chief service of chamber doors, and
they should be placed and hung so as _not_ to give a direct glimpse
across the bed or into the room the moment they are set even slightly
ajar. Closet doors are screens simply, and ought to hide the interior
of the closet when they are partially open, as well as when they are
closed. They may be as light as it is possible to make them. In many
houses one-half the doors might wisely be sent to the auction-room and
the proceeds invested in portieres, which are often far more suitable
and convenient than solid doors, especially for chamber closets, for
dressing-rooms, or other apartments communicating in suites, and not
infrequently a heavy curtain is an ample barrier between the principal
rooms. It may be well to supplement them, with light sliding doors, to
be used in an emergency, but which being rarely seen, may be
exceedingly simple and inexpensive, having no resemblance to the rest
of the finish in the room. For that matter such conformity is not
required of any of the doors, though it is reckoned by builders as one
of the cardinal points in hard-wood finish that veneered doors must
'match' the finish of the rooms in which they show. This is absurd.
Doors are under no such obligations. They may be of any sort of wood,
metal or fabric. They may be veneered, carved, gilded, ebonized,
painted, stained or 'decorated.' To finish and furnish a room entirely
with one kind of wood, making the wainscot, architraves, cornices,
doors and mantels, the chairs, tables, piano, bookcase, or sideboard,
all of mahogany, oak, or whatever may be chosen--the floors, too,
perhaps, and the picture frames--is strictly orthodox and eminently
respectable; but like the invariable use of 'low tones' in decorating
walls and ceilings, it betrays a sort of helplessness and lack of
courage. Discords in sound, color and form are, indeed, always hateful,
and they are sure to be produced when ignorance or accident strikes the
keys. Yet, on the other hand, neutrality and monotone are desperately
tedious, and it is better to strive and fail than to be hopelessly
commonplace."

[Illustration: INSIDE BARRIERS.]

[Illustration: COMMON UGLINESS.]

[Illustration: SIMPLE GRACE.]

This advice concerned not the doors alone, but referred to other
queries that had been raised as to the interior finish generally.

One evening Jack came home and found Jill "in the dumps," or as near as
she ever c