PUBLISHING. 73 



and ready for visitors." So it is ! And after fitting up 

 good bedrooms, comfortable and convenient kitchens, 

 pleasant dining-rooms, and nice pantries and milk-rooms, 

 parlors are the very next things to be considered in our 

 farm-homes unless some of the money devoted to them 

 might better be used for books and magazines and news- 

 papers, good fruits, shrubberies, and such essential 

 things as may be lacking. 



Even if one has but a small room to devote to this pur- 

 pose it can be made very pleasing, and has the advantage 

 of requiring less furniture. A fire-place with a mirror 

 above it, and a large wide-ledged window opposite, make 

 the room already half fitted up ! The ceiling calcimined 

 with the palest blue, and the walls with a tint two shades 

 deeper, will have the eif ect to make the room appear more 

 spacious. A border of dark and light-blue, or of bluish- 

 green and gold, should be used on such walls. The 

 wood-work should be stained walnut-color and varnished. 

 The most suitable carpet would be an ingrain in small 

 figures of blue and gray, with perhaps a bit of yellow or 

 a bit of rose-color scattered through it. Plain blue or 

 gray lambrequins should be used for the windows, 

 trimmed with fringe of the same color. For the curtains 

 beneath them, sheer Swiss muslin is always pretty and 

 graceful. Sometimes they are made with a knife plait- 

 ing or a fluted ruffle down the inner edges and across the 

 bottom ; but they look well when finished with simple 

 hems, and are much easier laundried. 



The fireplace should be treated after the manner de- 

 scribed in a previous chapter, and will be found the most 

 effective feature in the room, especially if furnished with 

 a good sized mirror, which will reflect back all the light 

 and beauty of the apartment, and, like the cool color on 

 the walls and ceiling, enhance its size. Indeed, I would 

 advise all those tasteful but restricted home-keepers w r ho 

 are anxious to have really attractive parlors, to aim for 

 4 



