WINDOW draperies have much to do with the comfort of a room. Without them it seems cold and bare; with too many, it seems stuffy. But when they conform in size and shape and weight and pattern to the character of the environment, the result is a background that makes the rest of the furnishing easy.

If they are too long and narrow, the height of the room will be exaggerated. If they are too short and wide, it will be diminished unduly. If they are too dark and heavily figured, they will seem to stand out boldly from the wall, lessening the size of the room and dwarfing the furniture. If they are too light and trivial, such as muslin in a stately room that has heavy woodwork and elaborate mural ornamentations, they look like a calico apron worn with a ball gown, or Mission chairs in a Louis XIV salon.

The variety of materials suitable for draping is extraordinary, and the range of price permits good taste to both small and large purses. Graceful lines and pleasing texture can be secured by the expenditure of pennies, and also by the expenditure of dollars; and to secure them requires no prolonged study of the technical principles of draping, or the nature of weaves and fibers - only an acquaintance with three or four of the rules that control the putting together of line and color, and the shading of light.

Draperies divide into two great classes - cut and uncut, French and classic, elaborate and simple - the three pairs of words being nearly synonymous. French is the term applied in a general way to all cut draperies, and cut draperies are apt to be more elaborate than those that hang free from rod and ring, or at most are gathered into "chous."

It is, of course, a truism to say that simple and modern rooms should be draped simply; elaborate apartments, elaborately. But it is a truism that needs to be constantly reiterated. For no error is more common than to overdrape or underdrape.

In the average home, elaborate draperies are entirely out of place. But between the simplest draperies and those that are appropriate for the average living-room there is a broad distinction, and wide opportunity for individual taste, so that the whole matter may well be given considerable study.

There is also a wide distinction between the draperies suitable for chambers and those suitable for living-rooms, between those intended for the individual and those that are to be shared by the family. The latter are rightly more expensive and more formal.

Take the dining-room, for instance. If it is small, with Mission furniture, and has plenty of color in wall-paper and rug, colored draperies of light weight are to be recommended. The most interesting color combinations are those to be found in madras, that on account of its delicate, translucent net ground and rough-figured surface, breaks up the light agreeably and permits the association of colors that in plainer weaves would fail to harmonize.

Particularly suitable for dining-rooms is the madras in stained-glass effects. It drapes well, either straight, or looped back with a band of the same material. It should hang from a small brass rod, and be gathered about one-third full. The heading should rise an inch and a half or two inches above the rod.

Besides madras, there are a number of other open-weave cotton drapery stuffs of interesting and individual texture. Where the cost must be reduced to the minimum, there are several very inexpensive domestic prints that are attractive, if skillfully hung to conceal their lack of body, among them printed madras and trellis cloth.

Even in simple dining-rooms, it is often desirable to have a short upper curtain, or valance, that seems to finish off draperies and windows at the top. When the windows are high and narrow, this is almost imperative. If the side draperies are narrow, and they and the valance are of denim or velours or some opaque fabric, plain net or lace curtains should be hung flat against the glass, to soften the light.

Only when the window-panes are very small or of glass that is not wholly transparent, should the light of the sun and sky be admitted without curtains next the glass to tone down glare and shadow.

By draping, the apparent shape of windows can be radically modified. Tall windows can be pollarded, and wide windows can be made slim. As already pointed out, the addition of a valance or lambrequin tends to lessen the height of a window, and this in proportion to the low-ness of its position. The valance that hangs down over the glass shortens the window appreciably, but the valance that hangs above the window, in combination with side curtains that lessen the width of the window, may even increase the apparent height.

The best way to study out for oneself the effect of draperies of different size and shape on windows of different size and shape is to experiment with uncut length of cheese-cloth or cretonne, or any available material. This will quickly demonstrate how much higher windows look with curtains that hang straight than with curtains that are looped back, and with narrow side curtains than with wide side curtains.

In general, it may be said that small rooms should be simply draped, and that elaborate draperies are permissible only in interiors of magnificent dimensions. Perhaps the only exception is small boudoirs in the Louis XV style, where an embroidered lambrequin and side-curtains cut in rococo curves are necessary to harmonize with the other furnishings. Certainly, the draperies of Louis XVI interiors should be simpler and more classic than is usual in the United States, or even in France. For the style of Louis XVI and of the Directoire represented a return to Greek and Roman draperies, and to the simplicity of line and of conventional ornament that characterizes only the more classic forms of our own Colonial.

Just as Mission is not a style but the negation of style, so Colonial is not really a style but a congeries of styles. It embraces all the periods of the past, except Gothic and those that come from the Orient. Most prominent in it are the French and English styles of the eighteenth century. But in form they have been more or less colonialized and assimilated to cisatlantic purses and traditions. The materials are less fine, the ornament less elaborate, and the execution less skillful.

Simplicity is the rule in Colonial draping. In more elaborate interiors, with heavy architectural background pilastered and colonnaded and arched, gold-braided draperies in velours, with straight valance or lambrequin or cornice, are appropriate. As the ceiling decreases in height and the walls come together, the gold braid and the lambrequin disappear, and the valances become short and flat.

In small Colonial chambers, the tendency to simplicity reaches its extreme. Here ruffled and fluted muslins, cretonnes and inexpensive prints are appropriate. In the larger chambers, the cretonnes are often made up elaborately with lambrequin and side curtains, and with tester and flounce for the fourposter.

To the writer, however, the effect of too much boldly-figured cretonne, especially when the wall-paper matches in pattern, is unpleasant. It contracts the room in size and, because of the repetition of motif, suggests a merry-go-round. I recall particularly a peacock pattern imported from England that turns a chamber otherwise admirably planned into a pavonic aviary.

There are some chambers where the only draperies necessary or desirable are inside the casing, next the glass. These can be in plain net, or in some of the fancy nets which are inexpensive and of which there are many fascinating weaves. Suitable also are madras and many of the fancy cotton weaves figured with stripes in cloth or gauze and with tiny conventional figures. Nor must we forget the dotted Swisses, especially those of delicate texture. An interesting way to drape these curtains is to cut them in half-length, attaching one pair to the upper sash and one pair to the lower sash. If the material is very light in weight, bottom rods may be necessary to hold the curtains in position and keep them from getting mussed.

The reception-room or parlor naturally receives the most formal and elaborate treatment. If it has a bay-window, a valance or lambrequin across the entire width, with narrow side and center curtains, may be the most prominent and indispensable decorative feature of the interior.

An undraped bay-window is an ugly thing, that admits too much bright light and throws the room out of balance. Translucent curtains next the glass are necessary on most bay-windows.