But no doubt there are a great many other nurseries just like this one--and, indeed, I know of several--so I would beg my readers to bear with me while I speak of these rooms, and beg them not to make a clean sweep of the nursery altogether until they are positively obliged to do so, not because there may be other babies to come, but because the nursery is useful for a thousand things, and it makes such a dreadful difference in a house when the room is completely altered and turned into a room for the maid who takes the place of the nurse, perhaps, or into a sitting-room for the girls or boys. Don’t let this be done, dear readers, until you are absolutely crowded out, because you will be miserable, and because you can never tell that the room may not be wanted as a sanitorium; an upstairs sitting-room, a refuge for our grandchildren, should we have married children, and should they be coming to stay with us, and bring their babies in due course of time; while the room having been decorated and furnished as a nursery is that and nothing else, and would have to be completely altered, should we settle to do away with it altogether.
Now, I want you to look just for a moment at the picture I have had drawn here of an empty nursery and see how admirably it is adapted for the purpose, and how cruel it would be to sweep away all these corners and shelves. You will notice how the cupboard fills in the recess between the fire and the wall, and you will see how a doll’s-house should be arranged, and then, I am sure, you will think twice about weeding out all this, and doing away with things that may give pleasure to future generations, particularly when we must all number among our acquaintances people with children, who come to tea, and will enjoy their tea twice as much if the children can be relegated to old nurse and the room where all is prepared for the small guests, who will for the moment take the place of those who are still children to us, albeit they are as old as we were when we began housekeeping ourselves, and set up a nursery with the pride and consequence inseparable from that most important step; while we can look hopefully forward to other small visitors who will be delighted to play with ‘mother’s old toys,’ and to hear things about that mother’s childhood, which can only be told them by an authority on the subject.