table-covers, of shabby material, of which the best that can be hoped is that they may speedily fade into better harmony. The Queen Anne tables were never intended by their designer to be covered up by drapery. They are generally inlaid in delicate designs, which it would be a sin to conceal; nor could we afford to lose the slender grace of the legs. The clumsy, ill-finished cheap table of the present day is all the better for a cover, and wonders may be done in improving a bare, cold, unhappy-looking room, by a good table-cover here and there, or a nicely embroidered sofa-pillow of cloth or satin, or, better still, one of those lovely new low screens, with the tall tufts of grass or lilies which we owe to Walter Crane's skilful pencil.
I confess I like a room to look as if it were inhabited, and that is the only drawback that the rooms furnished in the seventeenth century style have in my eyes. You scarcely ever feel as if any one lived in them—there are seldom any signs of occupation, especially feminine occupation, lying about, no "litter," in fact; litter being a powerful weapon in the hands of a person who knows how to make a room look comfortable. Then I am told that litter is incongruous in a Queen-Anne room, for that the women of those days had not the same modes of employment as ourselves. The
