CHAPTER IX.
THE SPARE ROOM.
ERHAPS the kindliest and wisest
advice with regard to a spare room,
would be the same as Punch's
famous counsel to young people
about to marry—a short and
emphatic "Don't." In a large country house,
perhaps even in a small country house, the case is
different, for the spare room too often represents
all the social variety which the owners can hope
for, from year's end to year's end—and the only
change from town life possible to half the bees
in the great hive. It is scarcely possible to
imagine an English country house, be it ever so
humble, without its spare room, or the warm
cordial welcome which would be sure to greet
its succeeding inhabitants. How fresh and sweet
and dainty do its simple appointments look to
jaded eyes! how grateful its deep stillness to
world-deafened ears! How impossible, in a brief summer
