If one adopts woollen curtains and portieres, constant "vigilance is the price of safety," and considering that vigilance is required everywhere and at all times in the household, it is best to reduce the quantity whenever it is possible.
This throws us back upon cottons and linens for inexpensive hangings, and in all the thousand forms in which these two fibres are manufactured it would seem easy to choose those which are beautiful, durable, and appropriate.

But here we are met at the very threshold of choice with the two undesirable qualities of fugitive colour, and stiffness of texture.

Something in the nature of cotton makes it inhospitable to dyes.

If it receives them it is with a protest, and an evident intention of casting them out at the earliest opportunity--it makes, it is true, one or two exceptions.

It welcomes indigo dye and will never quite relinquish its companionship; once received, it will carry its colours through all its serviceable life, and when it is finally ready to fall into dust, it is still loyally coloured by its influence.