with a more modern room. To my mind books are always the best ornaments in any room, and I never feel at home in any place until my beloved and often shabby old friends are unpacked and ranged in their recess. I once extemporised a capital book case out of a blocked-up window, and with a tiny scrap of looking-glass let in where the arch of the window began its spring, and filled by some old bowls of coarse but capital old china, whose gaudy colours could only be looked at safely from a distance.
As time goes on, one is sure, in such a beloved little den, to accumulate a great deal of rubbish dear, perhaps, only to the owner for the sake of association. Which of us has not, at some tender time of our lives, regarded a withered flower, or valueless pebble, as our great earthly treasure? So, in later days, a plate, a cup, a pipe will be precious, perhaps, to one as mementoes of the place and companions where and with whom it was bought But if such trifles, though too dear to be laid aside, are yet not intrinsically good enough to form part of a collection, and to take a prominent share in decoration, then I would either stand them aside on a little étagère like that to be found on page 79, or else get the carpenter to put up graduated shelves, which may be quite
