The Window-Sill and the Area. 
125 
to preserve the brightness of the scene all through the year. The moment a 
plant goes out of bloom it should be removed and its place supplied with 
another; for as to rearing plants in such situations as many do, it is wasting 
one of the best opportunities which art affords us for a display of successional 
pictures. As well might the actors dress and rehearse before the audience, 
as a collection of plants be allowed to present themselves in all their pre¬ 
paratory stages to the eye of either visitor or host. 
A flower-stand should always be bright, clean, and gay; and since it is a 
purely artificial arrangement, it should in itself be ornamental in design, 
material, and colouring. Designs and patterns might here be multiplied 
without end were they needed, but they are not. A visit to any of the 
established makers of iron and wire ornaments will enable any one to choose 
better than a whole sheet of engravings. Strict appropriateness is all that 
need be thought of (except price) by any purchaser of such a floral necessity. 
The size, the form, and the general arrangement must be such as to adapt it 
to the place it is to occupy; and if any special form deserves special notice, 
it is that which admits of the grouping of other ornaments, such as vases 
and fern shades with it; and this is easily accomplished—with a stand 
of an arched form, which admits of additional objects being placed 
beneath it. 
Window flower-boxes are now made in a variety of materials and styles, 
from the humble trough of deal wood painted stone-colour or dressed with 
rustic work in the shape of hazel-rods and pine cones, to the richly coloured 
encaustic tiles, and the equally beautiful and cheap imitations of them. These 
not only make an end of the ugliness and inconvenience of flower-pots, but 
in them the plants grow far more satisfactorily, and require considerably less 
attention. It is quite common now—and let us rejoice that it is common—to 
see windows most tastefully embellished with these constructions. In one of 
our regular “constitutional” walks we pass a handsome mansion built of 
white brick, all the noble windows of which are furnished with boxes of a 
costly kind, in the colouring of which blue predominates. They are always 
dashingly kept in flowering plants, and the rich colours of the boxes do not 
in any way kill out the colours of the plants. And we frequently pass a quiet 
tradesman's cottage, the windows of which have plain stone-coloured wooden 
boxes, which are equally satisfactory, because appropriate and well kept. Thus, 
the purse does not confer on its possessor a monopoly of pleasure any more 
than it serves him in place of judgment and taste ; and both these instances 
